What Is a Climate Model Anyway?

Oftentimes the public discourse around climate change comes down to which authority someone chooses to put their trust behind. This may be a well-liked politician, a family member who is trusted to stay up to date on the news, a religious leader, or the scientific community. It is difficult to say which of these is the “correct” way to gain an understanding of climate change, but oftentimes the benefits of trusting science are hidden by technical, inaccessible communication about scientific methods. As a small part of resolving this issue and providing transparency to scientific approaches, this article includes plain language explanations of what climate models are, how they work, what questions they can and cannot answer, and what uncertainties still remain in climate predictions.