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DeathMonkey writes:

Carbonbrief.org is reporting on a new paper published today in the journal 'Nature.'

Claims that Climate Models Overestimate Warming are "Unfounded", Study Shows

The abstract is located here.

A new paper takes an in-depth look at the suggestion that climate models routinely overestimate the speed at which Earth's surface is warming - and finds the argument lacking.

A look back over the past century shows that, by and large, what we see in global average temperature is extremely well captured by models, the authors tell Carbon Brief.

The new research, a collaboration between scientists at the Max Planck Institute in Germany and the University of Leeds, is published today in the journal Nature.

They go on to note:

The past 15 years has received a fair bit of attention. It's notable that 14 of those years topped the charts as the warmest on record. But the difference between individual years has been slight, meaning the earth's surface has risen a fair bit slower than in previous decades.

... it's worth remembering that we're talking here about surface temperature, not the globe as a whole, says lead author Prof Jochem Marotzke from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Germany. He tells us:

"[Surface temperature is] the temperature of a very thin layer of the climate system. Anthropogenic climate change has continued, it's just not so visible in the surface ... It's clearly visible if you look at the heat stored in the ocean, which has kept going during these 15 years. So climate change is continuing, even though surface warming has slowed down quite a bit."

[...]So what causes real-world temperatures to diverge from the models over periods as short as 15 years? That's down to natural fluctuations that temporarily boost or dampen the speed of warming, such as the global weather phenomenon known as El Niño, the paper notes.