From a conversation with DHM...
DHM: I'm still a bit boggled by the discovery that none of the climate models have any feedback effects in them. They know that raising the temperature of the Siberian permafrost a few degrees will release a LOT of methane, for example, and there are many others associated with melting sea ice and the like but none are included, which I think means we're all about to get a salutory lesson on control theory any year now
Me: I have to say, I wasn't overly boggled by that. The reasoning appears to be that there are no ways of knowing all the feedback effects and counting 'known' ones would leave the model open to being redone every time one was determined. So they go for the baseline...
DHM: The problem to me is that once that's been filtered through the PR dept and the press, the worst-case first-order projection is presented as the worst-possible-case projection
Me: I prefer to think of it as a projection half full of doom than half empty.
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