Paper Reviewed
Scafetta, N. 2016. Problems in Modelling and Forecasting Climate Change: CMIP5 General Circulation Models versus a Semi-Empirical Model Based on Natural Oscillations. International Journal of Heat and Technology 34: S435-S442.

In setting the stage for his work, Scafetta (2016) writes that "recent scientific research has pointed out that the IPCC climate models fail to properly reconstruct the natural variability of the climate at multiple scales," citing several references supporting this claim. And he goes on to report that advanced techniques of pattern recognition have pointed out that "the natural variability of the climate appears to be made of several oscillations from the decadal to millennial scales (e.g. periods of about 9.1, 10.4, 20, 60, 115, 1000 years and others)," adding that "these oscillations were also found to have a likely astronomical origin."

Scafetta then goes on to describe how, with the help of these findings, he developed "a semi-empirical climate model calibrated to reconstruct the natural climatic variability since Medieval times," which suggests "a very moderate warming until 2040 and a warming less than 2°C from 2000 to 2100 using the same anthropogenic emission scenarios used by the CMIP5 models."

As for the implications of these findings, Scafetta writes that (1) "the IPCC climate models severely overestimate the anthropogenic climatic warming by about two times," that he (2) consequently developed "a semi-empirical climate model calibrated to reconstruct the natural climatic variability since Medieval times," and that (3) "this model projects a very moderate warming until 2040 and a warming less than 2°C from 2000 to 2100 using the same anthropogenic emission scenarios used by the CMIP5 models."

Last of all, Scafetta writes that these findings suggest that (4) "climatic adaptation policies, which are less expensive than the mitigation ones, could be sufficient to address most of the consequences of a climatic change during the 21st century," and that (5) "fossil fuels, which have contributed significantly to the development of our societies, can still be used to fulfill our energy necessities until equally efficient alternative energy souses could be determined and developed."