Oh there is no doubt at all that after the fact, many researchers are trying to build and adjust climate models to try and both explain the colder winters, as well as predict what will happen.
Northern Hemisphere winters have not been particularly cold for a long time, so what exactly is "colder winters" referring to?
If you mean winters in the contiguous US you're referring to weather events, and climate models cannot be expected to predict weather events. Climate and weather are not the same thing.
If you don't mean that, please elucidate.
That isn't the claim that was made.
The claim that was made, as I recall, was that climate models haven't predicted these weather events. That is true, but they wouldn't be expected to. What they can predict are changes in frequencies of certain weather events, such as polar air incursions over the US during boreal winter. That, presumably, is the claim you're demanding be backed up.
As you now know, researchers in 2009 and 2010 used climate modelling to examine what might be expected to happen as Arctic sea-ic retreated, and concluded that this might lead to an increase in frequency of cold weather events in some regions during boreal winter, due to polar air incursions. Which substantiates the fact that climate models have indeed been used to predict this change - correctly or not we don't yet know. A few cold snaps over parts of the contiguous US are hardly sufficient evidence on which to judge.
If you are honest, it's not hard to state what has happened, and is happening.
Some people find it hard. Articuacy varies.
Climate models did not predict colder winters, but in fact the greatest warming was expected in winter, in high latitudes, and in the arctic.
In winter and in the Arctic, which is what we've experienced. Also at night, which again has been confirmed.
They were wrong, however the other factors involved may also be the reason, as many ideas are being exchanged to explain the cooling that the SST data shows, the surface stations show, the ocean readings show, and satellite measurements of the troposphere clearly show.
The SST data does not show that at all. There is no Arctic cooling - far from it - winters have warmed faster than summers, and nights have warmed faster than days. There are decades of data to demonstrate that.
It's not a thing at all.
Since the colder winter trend has become undeniable ...
It was never even tenable.
... models are being used and ideas flung about to explain it, and also claim causation from global warming. Which is hilarious since there isn't actually any warming to blame it on for over a decade.
There has been continuous global warming since the mid-70's, and that naturally includes the last decade.
There have been more polar incursions in the last few years compared to the previous 15 or so, when there were very few. Researchers are using models as tools to investigate whether some mechanism might be causing that. If one exists, understanding it will aid in predicting the regional impact of the warming which is yet to come, but apart from the practical benefits there's the desire to know and understand. It may be a chance cluster, we may see no more of them for another decade, or we may see them every few years or more. Apart from waiting to find out, modelling is the only practical means to investigate.
A leading contender for such a mechanism is the reduction of Arctic summer sea-ice extent, via changes to the vertical air-transport profile and thus to cyclonic and anti-cyclonic patterns. This reduction is undeniable, whatever one might believe about there being no warming going on while it's happened. Opinions are mixed on the mechanism, and even on the need to explain anything anyway.
be that as it may, climate models did not predict what happened.
Actually the first suggestions that this might happen came from modelling work done
before the recent cluster of polar incursions. So technically they did. But in truth global climate models don't predict this detail. They provide the general picture from which regional models can work on that detail.
What we are seeing, and is slowly being introduced here, is that currently new models are being used to predict colder winters, but only by the mechanism of global warming. These are not the climate models that predicted the warmer winters, obviously.
To a great extent they are, and why not? Winters are getting warmer in both hemishperes.
But it is an after the fact effort, since somebody has to explain why it's gotten so much colder in the NH in winter.
Actually nobody does. It's not a thing.
It's truly shameless that somebody is already trying to claim "this was predicted all along", by the same climate models that predicted warming in winters.
It was suggested by some modelling work done on the Artic region, with particular reference to the meteorological effects of reduced summer sea-ice. Global models wouldn't be expected to predict such detail, but they did, of course, predict the warmer winters we've experienced. That's part of the big picture.
It's a really big lie. Good luck with it.
It is, in fact, true that some modelling suggested an increase in frequency of polar incursions before this recent cluster began. It didn't convince many people, and still hasn't, but there it is.