Fact brief – Is the climate as unpredictable as the weather?
Posted on 10 May 2025 by Sue Bin Park
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline.
Is the climate as unpredictable as the weather?
Climate predictions are more reliable than weather forecasts because they model long-term trends driven by large-scale, predictable factors, like greenhouse gas emissions, rather than short-term local conditions.
Weather forecasts aim to predict daily changes in temperature or precipitation with great detail. These are primarily influenced by rapidly shifting conditions, making forecasts less accurate beyond a few days. Small changes in today’s weather can lead to very different outcomes tomorrow.
In contrast, climate models project broad patterns over decades, predicting how the planet’s baseline will shift. Projections of rising average temperatures are based on well-understood factors like the greenhouse effect, recently driven by our constant CO2 emissions.
A review of climate models published since the 1970s found that they accurately predicted the rise in average global temperatures.
Scientists continue to refine models with historical data and lessons learned since the beginning of computer climate modeling fifty years ago.
Go to full rebuttal on Skeptical Science or to the fact brief on Gigafact
This fact brief is responsive to quotes such as this one.
Sources
EarthScan Weather vs. climate: can they be predicted?
NOAA Climate Models
Geophysical Research Letters Evaluating the Performance of Past Climate Model Projections
Carbon Brief Analysis: How well have climate models projected global warming?
About fact briefs published on Gigafact
Fact briefs are short, credibly sourced summaries that offer “yes/no” answers in response to claims found online. They rely on publicly available, often primary source data and documents. Fact briefs are created by contributors to Gigafact — a nonprofit project looking to expand participation in fact-checking and protect the democratic process. See all of our published fact briefs here.
