It is clear that the model runs did not do especially well over the time period of observations, with none predicting the actual cooling we have seen in Alabama over the last century. If in trying to reproduce the past we see such errors, one must assume that predicting the future of regional climate will be at least as difficult. The models may have done fairly well in the global average, and may have done acceptably well in many geographic locations, but these results do not give me the confidence to understand how the weather will be different in the coming century. If in trying to reproduce the past we see such model errors, one must assume that predicting the future would produce similar opportunities for errors on a regional basis. I want to encourage the committee to be suspicious of media reports in which weather extremes are given as proof of human-induced climate change.
Weather extremes occur somewhere all the time.
For example, in the 48 conterminous states, the U.S. experienced the coldest combined November and December in 106 years, yet that does not prove U.S. or global cooling. In my region of Alabama, the 19 hottest summers of the past 108 years occurred prior to 1955. In the midwest, of the 10 worst heatwaves, only two have occurred since 1970, and they placed 7 th and 8 th . Hot weather has happened before and will happen again. Similar findings appear from an examination of destructive weather events.