Talk by David Camp

Title: Empirical Validation of Conceptual Climate Models

Abstract: Conceptual climate models are useful for testing hypotheses regarding the processes underlying observations; but they generally can only qualitatively match the empirical records. Models based on substantially different underlying physics can have comparable correlations with any given observation; more robust model validation procedures are needed. Using the Mid-Pleistocene Transition as a test case, we will show how modern time-series-analysis techniques can improve validation by extracting subtler features of the observations and models.