From a pure science reporting point of view the news article screams "the claims in this news article are an outlier result that isn't actually likely to be true". The lack of peer review, the claims that things are actually 10 times worse than the consensus, the focus on the fact that it's a famous scientist all tend to correlate with really bad articles, and the article barely even mentions any of the actual science done here. (and the part it does mention the science claims that the article doesn't even say it will happen in the next century)

The data we have has been evolving very rapidly over the last few years, but in general, it would appear to support these conclusions. If they'd thrown in a guesstimate on possible massive arctic permafrost/clathrate methane leaks, it'd make this estimate look conservative. Greenland, West and likely East Antarctica are all far more vulnerable to rapid melt than we had imagined, and those different findings have not to my knowledge so far been combined and used to update global models until now.

The paper is written by some of the real heavy-hitters of climate science, so I would take it in some sense as almost a "statement of consensus" about what the new science is telling us. And, as many have been trying to warn, the answer is: it's not good.

Climate change has become a political issue and politics is all about popularity and fame.

It seems like it's based on computer models, so it really depends on how well the models predict reality. Just fitting past data will not be sufficient.

No shit. It's pretty obvious that the article isn't talking about that.

What it is talking about is a scientist who has a known track record of advancing his field and being ahead of the curve in creating useful models and predictions.

Since the article is meant for laymen, it is reasonable to use the phrase as a shortcut for the prior definition, unless the title "Scientist who has been right about a lot of important things has more models with relevant results for all of us".