There was a big brouhaha in the scientific press this week about an article that used slow-growing sponges to find that we're actually at around 1.7 C above the preindustrial baseline because warming had already started before our current reference period began.
The pushback was "Well, it doesn't matter because our target was 1.5 C over the baseline that we're using." I can sympathize with that perspective a bit, but it really underscores that we're just guessing at when the consequences are going to start getting really severe. We're officially outside the global climate envelope that we evolved in and here there be dragons.
There was a big brouhaha in the scientific press this week about an article that used slow-growing sponges to find that we're actually at around 1.7 C above the preindustrial baseline because warming had already started before our current reference period began.
The pushback was "Well, it doesn't matter because our target was 1.5 C over the baseline that we're using." I can sympathize with that perspective a bit, but it really underscores that we're just guessing at when the consequences are going to start getting really severe. We're officially outside the global climate envelope that we evolved in and here there be dragons.
I love that expression but I hadn't thought of it that way.