A new study has revealed that climate change predictions made 30 years ago have been surprisingly accurate.
- Global temperature
Researchers from MIT, the University of California, and NASA found that 14 of 17 cloud models built between 1970 and 2007 predicted subsequent global temperatures with a high degree of accuracy, meaning about 82% of the models were accurate.
The study concludes that the warming we have seen is roughly the same as what climate models predicted 30 years ago.
- Sea level rise
Researchers at Tulane University found that in 1996, the IPCC predicted a sea level rise of about 8 centimeters (about 3 inches), which actually increased to 9 centimeters over the next 30 years, surprisingly close to 8.
- Overview
Research reports such as Carbon Brief and Yale Climate Connections also prove that models released since 1973 have predicted the effects of greenhouse gas changes quite accurately, although some models over-predicted more or less, but the overall trend was correct.
NASA research also shows that models released after 1970 showed considerable skill in predicting future temperatures, and when errors in the assumed environmental factors in the models were corrected, the number of models that made accurate predictions reached 14.