Abstract
The Earth is getting warmer and the surface temperature reflects the warming trend. Temperature records are kept and analyzed by several government agencies throughout the world among which are the Goddard Institute of Space Studies in the U. S., the Climate Research Unit in the U. K., the Japan Meteorological Association, and others. Tipping points beyond which nothing can be done to reverse them are discussed. Work by the U.K.’s Met Office and the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia was one of the first to report global warming. James Hansen of GISS reported on their studies and appeared before a committee of the U. S. congress advocating that action be taken to slow or stop warming that was occurring due to greenhouse gases. Scenarios A, B, and C were described by Hansen. Hansen and Lebedeff’s paper defining a method of determining a global average temperature is described as is the current method of determination.
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Farmer, G.T., Cook, J. (2013). Earth’s Surface Temperature. In: Climate Change Science: A Modern Synthesis. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5757-8_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5757-8_6
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