After 40 years, researchers finally see Earth’s climate destiny more clearly

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https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/after-40-years-researchers-finally-see-earths-climate-destiny-more-clearly

Source: By Paul Voosen, Science Magazine. 

Excerpt: It seems like such a simple question: How hot is Earth going to get? Yet for 40 years, climate scientists have repeated the same unsatisfying answer: If humans double atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) from preindustrial levels, the planet will eventually warm between 1.5°C and 4.5°C—a temperature range that encompasses everything from a merely troubling rise to a catastrophic one. Now, in a landmark effort, a team of 25 scientists has significantly narrowed the bounds on this critical factor, known as climate sensitivity. The assessment [https://climateextremes.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/WCRP_ECS_Final_manuscript_2019RG000678R_FINAL_200720.pdf], conducted under the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) and publishing this week in Reviews of Geophysics, relies on three strands of evidence: trends indicated by contemporary warming, the latest understanding of the feedback effects that can slow or accelerate climate change, and lessons from ancient climates. They support a likely warming range of between 2.6°C and 3.9°C, says Steven Sherwood, one of the study’s lead authors and a climate scientist at the University of New South Wales. “This is the number that really controls how bad global warming is going to be.”... [] See also "Major new climate study rules out less severe global warming scenarios" by Andrew Freedman and Chris Mooney, The Washington Post [https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/07/22/climate-sensitivity-co2/] and similar New York Times article [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/22/climate/global-warming-temperature-range.html] 

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