Climate models are unmatched in their ability to quantify otherwise qualitative hypotheses and generate new ideas that can be tested against observations. The models are far from perfect, but they have successfully captured fundamental aspects of air, ocean, and sea-ice circulations and their variability. They are therefore useful tools for estimating the consequences of humankind's ongoing and audacious planetary experiment.
http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-60/iss-1/72_1.html
"...humankind's ongoing and audacious planetary experiment..."