New estimates from a Norwegian research project show meeting targets for minimizing global warming may be more achievable than previously thought.
After the planet’s average surface temperature rose through the 1990s, the increase has almost leveled off at the level of 2000, while ocean water temperature has also stabilized, the Research Council of Norway said in a statement on its website. After applying data from the past decade, the results showed temperatures may rise 1.9 degrees Celsius if Co2 levels double by 2050, below the 3 degrees predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
“The Earth’s mean temperature rose sharply during the 1990s,” said Terje Berntsen, a professor at the University of Oslo who worked on the study. “This may have caused us to overestimate climate sensitivity.”
"Overestimate." Polite way of putting it. Mother Earth is a tough old bird, and the collectivists' use of her as the latest excuse for top-down authoritarian behavior modification is getting more and more tiresome.
