Climate skeptics have long argued that computer models used to predict climate change are at best unreliable and, at worst, completely inaccurate.
The Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, published in 2007, stated that over decades, these models continually delivered a "clear and unambiguous picture" of planetary warming.
The findings are supported by current research. The Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, released in 2023, emphasizes that the new CMIP6 climate models show, with a very high degree of credibility, the same picture as actual observations. They accurately reflect the overall trends in temperature increases since the mid-19th century, as well as temperature oscillations. The averages yielded by the models correlate to actually recorded warming.
A 2020 analysis led by the University of California found that 14 out of 17 models developed between 1970 and 2007 accurately predicted the trajectory of subsequent temperature increases. The calculations accounted for actual greenhouse gas emissions and other climate-related factors.