evidence: Climate models have, in fact, successfully projected the rate of global warming, comparing well with observed global temperature in recent years. The idea that models should be faulted for not predicting the "hiatus"—the period in the early 2000s during which temperatures stayed below the long-term trend—reflects a misunderstanding of what a model projection is. [...] Misleading: Climate model projections show average long-term trends—by nature they will not "predict" short-term variability such as the "hiatus" period. [...] Statements that climate models overestimate the warming in response to CO2 are incorrect; they are based on either too short time periods that are dominated by natural variability, by the comparison of models with datasets that do not have global coverage, by comparing to models that were run many years ago with emissions and forcings that differed from what actually happened, by the use of oversimplified energy balance models1, or a combination of these. Recent studies have shown that once the changes in climate feedbacks over time2, datasets with full coverage3, and all forcings are considered, the agreement between predicted and observed warming is excellent, even over the recent hiatus period4.