This color-coded map shows global surface temperature anomalies. Higher-than-normal temperatures are shown in red, and lower-than-normal temperatures are shown in blue.

(NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center)

At a Glance

Of the 17 climate change models examined, 14 were quite accurate in predicting global warming's effects.The researchers plugged real emissions levels into the models and predictions matched what has happened.This should provide more confidence in the current models, one scientist said.

The computer models used over the past five decades to predict the impact of future global warming have turned out to be very accurate so far, a new study has found.

Climate scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NASA evaluated climate models from the early 1970s into the late 2000s to see how well they predicted the actual global mean surface temperature, based on levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

They also looked at how well the models matched the relationship between warming and changes in levels of greenhouse gases.

Of the 17 climate projections examined, after they were published, according to the study published Wednesday in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

(MORE: Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions Projected to Set Another Record This Year)

Estimating how much greenhouse gas will be emitted in the future is difficult because it involves human behavior, how well the economy is doing and government policy. on new cars, for example, adds more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

"We did not focus on how well their crystal ball predicted future emissions of greenhouse gases, because that is a question for economists and energy modelers, ," Zeke Hausfather, a UC Berkeley doctoral student and lead author of the study, said in a news release. "It is impossible to know exactly what human emissions will be in the future. Physics we can understand, it is a deterministic system; Future emissions depend on human systems, which are not necessarily deterministic."

So, according to Gizmodo's Earther blog, of global greenhouse emissions into the models to see if they would accurately predict global temperature rise since the models were created.

That found the models were quite accurate.

"The earliest models were so skillful because the fundamental science behind the greenhouse effect and ," Henri Drake, a co-author of the study and an MIT doctoral student, told Mashable.

"The real message is that the warming we have experienced is pretty much exactly what climate models predicted it would be as much as 30 years ago," Hausfather said. "This really gives us more confidence that today's models are getting things largely right as well."

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