When one compares the output of CO2-centric climate models, such as the one developed by James Hansen when he was with NASA, to the actual climate records, the comparison reveals how absolutely terrible the climate models have been at predictions...rest assured, as of the end of August 2014, that hasn't changed.....
Since the HadCRUT folks just released their August global temperature dataset, it was time to update the adjacent graph of the (in)famous NASA climate model versus the reality.
Back around 1988, James Hansen of NASA presented his climate model computer simulations, which predicted that global warming would be excessive and dangerous if CO2 emissions continued in a similar 'business-as-usual' (BAU) manner.
On the chart, the green curve is NASA's depicted BAU scenario for global temperatures. This was referred to as 'Scenario A' for global temperatures and was associated with a CO2 emission metric tonne growth that exceeded 1.5% per year.
For the record, over the last 15 calendar years CO2 emission tonne growth has clocked in at about 2.5% per year - well over the 'BAU' bar that Hansen and NASA had proclaimed as an end-of-the-world disaster as we know it.
Putting this into a context of proper comparison, the 15 years ending 1987, before the 1988 prediction, had a per year emission growth that averaged about 1.9%, less than the 15-year average growth ending 2013.
So what happened to the global temps? Indeed, the chart tells the story - not too much.
Hansen and NASA predicted that a BAU scenario would produce a global warming in 2014 that is represented by the large red dot on the chart. In reality though, both the NASA/GISS and HadCRUT global temperature datasets reveal warming by 2014 that is significantly below the climate model BAU prediction.
In fact, both global temperature datasets reveal a climate-reality outcome that resembles the NASA 'Scenario C' (see aqua/cyan curve) that could only happen if global CO2 emission tonnes were reduced to a mere fraction of the "dangerous" 1.5% growth.
Why this obvious and immense failure by government scientists and advanced computer technology? It's simple...CO2 emissions are not causing rapid, accelerating global warming, which the failed billion$ computer models assumed would happen due to growing CO2.
And embarrassingly, they still do, despite the almost two-decade 'pause' in the global warming trend.
Previous climate-model charts.