Is this the scariest number on the planet?
Today it has reached 425.85 ppm.
3 comments
@ShadSterling Nobody knows because nobody has a good grasp of the second-order and higher-order effects, like additional methane being released. And as we see in real time these days, the average temperature is less impactful anyway than the change in variation: heat and cold waves, drought and flood extremes etc. @j12t it might need to account for multiple greenhouse gasses, but I don’t think we’d need to have predictions of emissions to have a model of equilibrium temperatures. What I usually see is that higher contrasts are part of having a higher temperature, but I wonder if being further from equilibrium also adds to that |
@j12t do we know what the equilibrium temperature is for the current CO₂ level?
I’ve only seen temperature projections for future dates, without mentioning levels or equilibrium; it’s alright to have some sense of what to expect in 2050 with various potential changes in emissions, but I want to know where it will stop changing if we cease emissions at, say 430ppm.
Wait, that’s only next year, we need at least a decade; maybe 500ppm.