We're Not Totally Sure How Much the Planet Will Warm This Century—But We Still Need to Act. It’s a well- worn fact that our round Earth is warming, and that human carbon emissions are the cause. What’s less well- known is how much warming we’ve already committed our planet to in the future.

A new study crunched some numbers and came to an alarming answer—but other experts are already criticizing its approach, reminding us that the course of climate change remains incredibly tough to predict. The two degrees Celsius warming target—adopted by scientists and politicians alike as a threshold we ought to stay below to avoid catastrophic climate impacts—is very likely to be surpassed this century, according to a study out in Nature Climate Change today.

Using statistical models that project trends in socio- economic factors like GDP and population growth forward in time, the University of Washington- led study estimates there is only a five percent change Earth will warm less than two degrees this century. Depressingly, the authors estimate just a one percent chance that we’ll remain below 1. Paris Climate Agreement, which is thought to offer low- lying island nations the best chance of remaining above water. Instead, the authors estimate a 9. Celsius (3. 6 to 8.

Search metadata Search full text of books Search TV captions Search archived web sites Advanced Search.

Fahrenheit) by century’s end. Intel R Core Tm 2 Cpu 6400 Driver Download here. On the one hand, this isn’t surprising—many experts believe we aren’t reducing our collective carbon footprint quickly enough to align with the Paris goal. The planet has already warmed about a degree since pre- industrial times, and we know that there’s more warming baked in as economies make the transition to renewable energy, and as heat taken up by the oceans is re- released to the atmosphere. Another study out in Nature Climate Change last week also suggested we’re more likely to breach the two degree threshold than previously thought, because of uncertainty in how we define our pre- industrial “baseline” level of CO2. But when I sent the new paper to climate scientist Michael Mann, one of the co- authors of last week’s study on defining the pre- industrial baseline, he was immediately critical of its methods. The question is whether we will change those patterns before we radically damage our environment effectively forever.”I’ve reached out to Adrian Raftery, lead author of the new study, with some of the criticisms enumerated above. I’ve also reached out to a few other climate scientists to see what they think, and will update this post if and when I hear back.

ASTM develops technical standards for industry worldwide.

But, in short, there’s still a lot of uncertainty about how much the planet will warm this century. Another study, also published today in Nature Climate Change, suggests we’re likely only committed to 1. The two new estimates are barely within the error bars of each other. Of course, none of this changes the fact that we need to act quickly to avoid the worst consequences of climate change. So, what’s the average person to do about it all? If you live in a wealthy nation, here’s a list of choices you can make to align your lifestyle with the Paris goal.

Where should the damper position be? How often does the water in my steam humidifier drain? Why does it do that? What range of humidity is ideal?

If enough of us make enough of these choices, it’ll help drive our economy in the right direction. But ultimately, the decisions that’ll lead to the most impactful shifts—those that cannot be predicted by models based on historical trends—are bigger than us. They’re policy decisions made at high levels of government. So, you can also vote.

It would take a noticeable acceleration or deceleration to make a difference,” he said. Or one could imagine a country investing in basic science in a way that brings forth technological breakthroughs at a far more rapid pace than has already been the case.”.