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FACT BRIEF

Have climate models overestimated global warming?

Thursday, April 8, 2021
By John Cook
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NO

Climate models have consistently and accurately predicted how much the planet would warm from human-generated greenhouse gases. Models use the laws of physics to approximate Earth’s climate, including its atmosphere, oceans, land and solar energy, estimating how it may change overtime.

Authors of a 2019 study compared temperature predictions from 17 climate models created between 1970 and 2007 to actual observed temperatures. They found that “climate models published over the past five decades were skillful in predicting subsequent [temperature] changes.”

The misconception that climate models are only reliable if they perfectly predict changes is a fallacy of impossible expectations. While models are not perfect (the only perfect representation of reality is reality itself), they have faithfully predicted climatic changes with increasing accuracy over time.

See a full discussion of this at Skeptical Science
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Sources
NOAA Climate Climate Models
UQx Denial101x Making Sense of Climate Science Denial [Climate Modeling] Success Stories
Guardian The father of climate change
AGU Journals Evaluating the Performance of Past Climate Model Projections
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR
Skeptical Science
Skeptical Science is a non-profit science education organization. Our goal is to remove a roadblock to climate action by building public resilience against climate misinformation. We achieve this by publishing debunking of climate myths as well as providing resources for educators, communicators, scientists, and the general public. Skeptical Science was founded and is led by John Cook, a Senior Research Fellow with the Melbourne Centre for Behaviour Change at the University of Melbourne.
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About fact briefs published on Gigafact
Fact briefs are short, credibly sourced summaries that offer “yes/no” answers in response to claims found online. They rely on publicly available, often primary source data and documents. Fact briefs are created by contributors to Gigafact —a nonprofit project looking to expand participation in fact-checking and protect the democratic process. See all fact briefs here.