6th Annual Lecture - Climate and Catastrophe

摘要

I do not have to tell you what climate is, although sometimes I reflect that our ancestors could have done worse than worship the sun god. In general he treats us kindly. Indeed we would not otherwise be here. The naturally occurring greenhouse effectis benign. Without it the earth would be some 33°C colder, and life as we know it could not exist. Remember that on Mars there is a small greenhouse effect which produces swings of temperature between +27°C and -73°C, and on Venus there is a big greenhouse effect which produces an average global temperature of +475°C.