In 1988 I wrote the book chapter
Pielke, R.A., 1988: Evaluation of climate change using numerical models. In “Monitoring Climate for the Effects of Increasing Greenhouse Gas Concentrations. Proceedings of a Workshop”. R.A. Pielke and T. Kittel, Eds., Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA), Fort Collins, Colorado, August 1987, 161-172.
Included in the text is
“The dynamic accuracy of GCM models have not been adequately tested. Such models need to be used to predict short-term weather changes since skill at such forecasts is essential if the models are to demonstrate a numerical fidelity in simulating wave-wave interactions. If the GCMs have insufficient spatial resolution or physics to forecast weather as accurately as current operational weather numerical weather prediction models, what confidence should be placed on their skill at predicting long-term climate change?”
Now, finally in 2011, a paper examines part of this issue, although it equates high spatial resolution and lower spatial resolution model runs at two different 25 year time slices with an actual scientific test of climate change, when observations are not, of course, available to test their results decades from now. It is an informative study, however, on the effect of model resolution for the time period of 1979 to 2003. (Roger Pielke Sr.)
