Sunday, August 17, 2008

Long Term Temperature Predictions

The bottom line is that we do not know what the planet's current temperature is, although satellite-mounted instruments and Argo autonomous floats are giving us a better picture than we had before.

We do not know what the planet's temperature was 100 years ago with any meaningful precision.

We have no way of telling whether Earth will be warmer or cooler at the beginning of Solar Cycle 25 (SC24 is just sputtering to a start now and it is reasonable to guess Earth will be slightly warmer in the midst of the roughly 11 year cycle, although there is no guarantee).

And we're making policy on this kind of uncertainty?

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