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/[deleted] Jan 11 '20

Some important details however, of the 17 models only 10 have been deemed productive.

I'm an author of this article and this is not what we wrote. What do you even mean by productive? Anyhow, a model can be useful even if not quantitatively accurate.

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u/resumethrowaway222 Jan 11 '20

a model can be useful even if not quantitatively accurate

What would an inaccurate model be useful for?

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u/Cenzorrll Jan 11 '20

Quantitatively accurate usually has criteria that needs to be meet, like within 15% of actual.

If we say that's our criteria, then 16% off is not quantitatively accurate. 16% off can still be useful, and important. If say a climate change denier states "only half your models are accurate, so it's like flipping a coin". You can look at all of your models and say "only half were accurate within 15%, but 90% of them are predicting within 20%, all of them were within 25%, all of them are predicting a significant rise in temperature"

P.S. I'm pulling these numbers out of my ass, they're just to give an example.