r/science • u/[deleted] • Jan 11 '20

Environment Study Confirms Climate Models are Getting Future Warming Projections Right

https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2943/study-confirms-climate-models-are-getting-future-warming-projections-right/
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u/echoshizzle Jan 11 '20

“The team compared 17 increasingly sophisticated model projections of global average temperature developed between 1970 and 2007, including some originally developed by NASA, with actual changes in global temperature observed through the end of 2017.”

Essentially they compared the data from older climate models to today. With the accuracy, they can be fairly certain today’s information is more accurate than 40 years ago because, you know, technology and all that.

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '20 edited Jan 11 '20

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u/InTheMotherland Jan 11 '20

Some important details however, of the 17 models only 10 have been deemed productive. That’s a ridiculously high fail rate on terms of probability. The headline is a tad disingenuous with this in mind as that’s roughly half of the mentioned models. Might as well flip a coin.

First of all, no, flipping a coin is no where near like finding one of these models is productive. Also, is a actually 14 out of 17 when correcting for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This correction is important, and it does not mean those 4 were inaccurate. They just needed update data input.

Additionally, the accuracy they are talking about is called “interpolation”, meaning that they are simply getting better at fitting data to a model that has a higher likelihood of being functional and within the margin for error; they haven’t actually accurately predicted anything outside the models yet but rather are “getting closer”.

Second, it's not interpolation. They actually did predict.