Depends, overall predictions from the mid 1980's where high and a lot of research has gone into why.
A significant part of the difference disappears if you adjust for CO2 produced vs predicted. Granted, you can argue that the older models needed to account for both, but what we want to validate is predictions of impacts not predictions of fossil fuel use.
It's extremely disingenuous to show a single line as the 'prediction'. There have been plenty of projections that include possible reductions in temperature. As well as a wide range of types of measurements.
Great points. To add a little more detail, predicting the results of greenhouse gasses in the atmosephere is science. Predicting the amount of gasses in the atmosephere requires predicting human economic activity in detail (how much, in what form, etc.), which is impossible, especially on longer timescales (imagine how many investors would love to know how to do that!)
The predictions I've seen, at least in the IPCC reports,[1] show not lines but confidence intervals that widen over time.
A significant part of the difference disappears if you adjust for CO2 produced vs predicted. Granted, you can argue that the older models needed to account for both, but what we want to validate is predictions of impacts not predictions of fossil fuel use.
It's extremely disingenuous to show a single line as the 'prediction'. There have been plenty of projections that include possible reductions in temperature. As well as a wide range of types of measurements.
PS: You can also do a lot of cherry picking on both sides: http://phys.org/news/2012-04-climate-eerily-accurate.html