How does rising atmospheric CO2 affect marine organisms?

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UN Information Sheet 7: The evidence from climate models
This information sheet could more appropriately be called "the shortcomings of climate models;" for it highlights a number of difficulties associated with the enterprise of accurately predicting earth's climatic future, as well as some of the problems the climate modeling community faces in attempting to surmount them.

The section begins by correctly stating that "it is physically impossible for the climate system to warm up by over 1°C without any other changes."  It then identifies some of the major known feedbacks of both a positive and negative character that come into play following the imposition of an initial impetus for warming; but it provides precious little insight into what the net outcome of the many competing forces would be - and rightly so, for most of them are insufficiently understood to accurately quantify their individual contributions, as well as how they might influence each other when acting in unison.

This section also notes that "inevitable approximations" cause climate models "to drift away from the present climate at a rate comparable to, or even larger than, the warming expected due to changing greenhouse gas levels."  It says that there are ways of correcting for this drift in the simulated climate, but that "none of these correction schemes is very satisfactory, since they are covering up model errors that might be important for climate change."  In the end, the authors of the information sheet truly acknowledge that "climate models are scientific tools, not crystal balls," indicating that they may appear to have an "aura of truth," but that they "will never be an infallible guide to the future."

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