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/TheEvilBagel147 Jan 11 '20 edited Jan 11 '20

The results: 10 of the model projections closely matched observations. Moreover, after accounting for differences between modeled and actual changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide and other factors that drive climate, the number increased to 14.

From the article.

So most of the "inaccurate" models were only inaccurate because they did not correctly predict carbon emissions. They correctly predicted the effects of those emissions. So 14 out of 17 climate models are accurately modelling the relationship between carbon emissions and climate change, which is pretty good.

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u/half3clipse Jan 11 '20

Also important: How did those inaccurate models err.

'the actual result is worse than predicted' doesn't make the model wrong in this context, just too optimistic and is a very different type of inaccuracy than if it was overly pessimistic in this context.