Uncertain Climate Forecasts From Multimodel Ensembles: When to Use Them and When to Ignore Them

Abstract

Uncertainty around multimodel ensemble forecasts of changes in future climate reduces the accuracy of those forecasts. For very uncertain forecasts this effect may mean that the forecasts should not be used. We investigate the use of the well-known Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) to make the decision as to whether a forecast should be used or ignored.