Mike Hulme, Suraje Dessai and I have a piece out today in Nature Reports Climate Change titled Keeping Prediction in Perspective. Here is an excerpt, which references the figure above:Find the piece here. Comments welcomed.But evidence that climate predictions can provide precise and accurate guidance about how the long-term future may evolve is fundamentally lacking. Scientists and decision-makers alike should treat climate models not as truth machines to be relied upon for making adaptation decisions, but instead as one of a range of tools to explore future possibilities. A recent example2 from the Australian state of Victoria highlights the perils of relying on the predict-then-adapt mode of planning. In 2005, the Victoria government conducted a study to develop water-supply scenarios for its capital city Melbourne to 2020 under conditions of human-caused climate change. Before then, water planning in Victoria had been done with little consideration of the potential effects of climate change. The exercise resulted in a range of forecasts implying a 3-per-cent decline in storage under a 'mild' effects scenario and an 11-per-cent decline under a 'severe' scenario. The study concluded that the existing plan put into place in 2002 "provided [a] sufficient buffer ... across the full range of climate change and alternative demand forecasts considered in this case study" out to 2020.
If nature has a sense of humour, it is a vicious one. In 2006, water supply to Melbourne dropped to a record low level of 165 gigalitres (Gl), well below the 1913–2005 average of 588 Gl and the recently lower average of 453 Gl from 1996 to 2005 (Fig. 1). In the three years since the 2005 modelling study, the average water supply level was less than half the long-term average and well below the estimated outcome for the 'severe' scenario considered in the study.