If you're interested in the current state of Climate Science, I strongly recommend that you read the IPCC reports as a starting point rather than read popular articles. (Starting with FAR 1990, it'll help with seeing how the ideas evolved over time)
Also note that as the AR reports get published, the models consistently get more complicated and improve. It turns out that you can get a fair amount of headway with a simplistic model (CO2 will generally drive the temperature up), but if you want to explain the variation that is observed, it gets more complicated. Given that the amount of warming has been consistently underestimated by the IPCC reports[1], it's fair to say that, for the most part, scientists are aware of the failings of their models and are being cautious in how dangerous the potential outcomes are.
The press, being the press, tends to sensationalize science with "Conflict! Intrigue! Breakthrough! Physicists vs Biologists! SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY!". I suspect that these misleading characterizations have a bigger impact on people's perception of Science than the actions of scientists themselves.
> the amount of warming has been consistently underestimated by the IPCC reports
I think you mean overestimated. The IPCC reports have consistently predicted more warming than has actually occurred; by now the actual warming is outside the lower end of the IPCC's confidence interval. The IPCC AR5 responded to this by no longer claiming that its predictions of warming were based on climate models; instead it said they were based on, in effect, the personal opinions of the report writers. This does not strike me as a valid scientific method.
> The press, being the press, tends to sensationalize science with "Conflict! Intrigue! Breakthrough! Physicists vs Biologists! SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY!". I suspect that these misleading characterizations have a bigger impact on people's perception of Science than the actions of scientists themselves.
While I agree that the press likes to blow everything out of proportion, I think scientists have to bear the blame as well. Scientists do not do a good job of conveying the relative levels of confidence in different claims; to the public, they portray every claim as being made by Science, with the same authority, regardless of how solid it actually is. It is hard to blame lay people for losing trust in science when so many of these claims turn out to be wrong. What scientists should have done is to not have made those claims with the authority of Science in the first place.
The recent "replication crisis" is an example of this. The reason all those findings weren't replicated is that they weren't valid in the first place; they were only indications that needed further investigation. The scientists publishing them should have known that and should have said so. The narrative that should have been given to the public is "these are interesting indications but that's all, they might not pan out, more research is needed...well, we did more research and it didn't pan out.". But the narrative that was actually given to the public was "WoW! Great new finding! Everybody change everything you're doing!...oh, wait, turns out it wasn't true after all." After enough iterations of this, naturally nobody trusts what scientists say any more.
>The IPCC reports have consistently predicted more warming than has actually occurred; by now the actual warming is outside the lower end of the IPCC's confidence interval.
What confidence interval is that? What prediction was much higher than the +1C that has occurred? Looking up the 1990 IPCC report I see +1.5 to +4.5 between 2025 and 2050. We seem to be within that prediction.
The temperature anomaly (quoted on that page as 0.9C) is not based on 1990 as the zero point, so that's not the relevant number. The actual numbers are in the data behind the smoothed curve shown on the right of the page (click the "HTTP" link next to "Get Data").
> Looking up the 1990 IPCC report...
The relevant prediction in that report is for the "business as usual" scenario for CO2 increase, since that matches pretty closely how CO2 has actually increased since 1990. The prediction for that scenario is +0.3C per decade.
However, there are other comparisons that can be made, which make the models look even worse. See, for example, here:
This is comparing the IPCC AR5 model runs with balloon and satellite data. (And note that, unlike the comparison I did above, the "model runs" curve in this graph averages models for all of the CO2 increase scenarios, not just the "business as usual" one; just showing the "business as usual" model prediction curve would increase the gap between the models and the data.
+1C from pre-industrial times. Apparently we are at +0.8-1.2 in that measure.
>The prediction for that scenario is +0.3C per decade.
The report says 0.2-0.5. The +0.6 from 1990 to today is at the lower end of that range. It seems to me you're splitting hairs when the models are doing alright.
> +1C from pre-industrial times. Apparently we are at +0.8-1.2 in that measure.
Which all depends on how you choose "pre-industrial times" and how accurate you think temperature readings from those times are. Since even today's thermometers are only accurate to within half a degree or so, I'm not sure how we can even know the change from "pre-industrial times" to within less than half a degree (four tenths of a degree according to your statement).
> The report says 0.2-0.5. The +0.6 from 1990 to today is at the lower end of that range.
Yes, that's true. But as I noted, that's not the only comparison between models and data. Looking at comparisons overall, the statement I made, that the data is outside the lower end of the models' confidence interval, is correct.
https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_d...
Also note that as the AR reports get published, the models consistently get more complicated and improve. It turns out that you can get a fair amount of headway with a simplistic model (CO2 will generally drive the temperature up), but if you want to explain the variation that is observed, it gets more complicated. Given that the amount of warming has been consistently underestimated by the IPCC reports[1], it's fair to say that, for the most part, scientists are aware of the failings of their models and are being cautious in how dangerous the potential outcomes are.
The press, being the press, tends to sensationalize science with "Conflict! Intrigue! Breakthrough! Physicists vs Biologists! SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY!". I suspect that these misleading characterizations have a bigger impact on people's perception of Science than the actions of scientists themselves.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Cli...