In Nature's open access journal Scientific Reports there's
a paper just out by
Chris Huntingford and
Lina M. Mercado about how much more warming to expect. Scientists report that even if we
didn't add any more CO2 to the air *kept CO2 at current levels in the atmosphere (around 400 ppm), temperatures over a lot of land regions would eventually increase by more than 1.5°C. (*See
comment by ATTP below.) There are two main reasons for this:
- until we reach equilibrium, with as much radiation leaving the planet as comes in from the sun, the earth will continue to warm;
- the land surface warm is a lot more quickly than the ocean surface and will continue to do so until the new equilibrium higher temperatures are reached.
