A 50-Year-Old Global Warming Forecast That Still Holds Up

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https://eos.org/features/a-50-year-old-global-warming-forecast-that-still-holds-up

Source:  By Andrei Lapenis, Eos/AGU. 

Excerpt: In 1972, Mikhail Ivanovich Budyko used a simple methodology to make climate predictions that remain surprisingly accurate today and that could serve as a new “business-as-usual” scenario. ...He predicted that Earth’s mean global temperature would increase about 2.25°C by 2070 and that the Arctic would no longer be covered by ice year-round by 2050 [Budyko, 1972]. (Budyko briefly discussed the part of his forecast dealing with Arctic ice in a 1972 Eos article cited more than 100 times since.) Despite his confidence in his work, he cautioned that his estimates were made under assumptions of a significantly simplified climate system and should be viewed accordingly [Budyko, 1972], so it might have surprised him to see how closely actual events aligned with his predictions. Comparing 2019 to 1970, Budyko predicted an increase in the global mean temperature of 1°C and the disappearance of about 50% of Arctic multiyear ice. Observations have borne out these trends, demonstrating that mean global temperature increased by 0.98°C over this period and that the extent of multiyear Arctic sea ice in September 2019 was about 46% smaller than in 1970...  

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