It's worth keeping in mind that the modeled data lines up with reality because it's supposed to. That's how you calibrate your model, by making sure it fits reality.
The real trick is to see how well your model extrapolates from the data you have out into the future. As in, if you feed it data up to, say, 1990, will it correctly spit out 2015 temperatures that fit the reality of 2015, or will it spit out crazy 2015 predictions like the models that were built in 1990 did. And, the bigger question: How will its predictions for 2040 (given 2015 data) match up to the reality over the next 25 years.
We seem to be getting a lot better at the modeling side. That's a good thing, since the first couple decades of watching people panicking and fighting each other over whatever scary results came out of the first generation climate models wasn't any fun to watch.
It's worth keeping in mind that the modeled data lines up with reality because it's supposed to. That's how you calibrate your model, by making sure it fits reality.
The real trick is to see how well your model extrapolates from the data you have out into the future. As in, if you feed it data up to, say, 1990, will it correctly spit out 2015 temperatures that fit the reality of 2015, or will it spit out crazy 2015 predictions like the models that were built in 1990 did. And, the bigger question: How will its predictions for 2040 (given 2015 data) match up to the reality over the next 25 years.
We seem to be getting a lot better at the modeling side. That's a good thing, since the first couple decades of watching people panicking and fighting each other over whatever scary results came out of the first generation climate models wasn't any fun to watch.