Living things have evolved and adapted over millions of years to live successfully in very different temperatures. Penguins at the South Pole may live quite happily in temperatures of —50°C (-58°F), while some bacteria live near deep-sea vents that are gushing out water at close to boiling point.
The current temperatures are excellent for the northern hemisphere. Today the weather and climate are mild with an excellent growing season. If there was a little more CO2 for the plants and the temperature goes up some it would be ideal. The fear that the planet will crumble as the thermostat goes up is sheer nonsense. Man has adapted to not only a warmer climate, but extreme climates. Just remember, cold kills faster than heat.
There is so much fear mongering regarding climate change, while humans have not had it this good for some time. Regardless if there were an ideal global temperature, mankind does not have the ability or technology to regulate the climate. Good thing too! Every time man has tried to control nature he has made a mess of things.
I value humans, so the mean temperature should be something suitable for humans. On the upside, what’s suitable for humans is also suitable for everything that’s been living on the planet for the past 10,000 years.
The current global average temperature is about 59 degrees F. This is almost two full degrees warmer than the global average from 1951–1980. What is the average global temperature now? However, for the past 10,000 years or so the global climate has only fluctuated a couple of degrees F around the current global mean. Climate change during the Holocene (Past 1200).
In that case, I would want the global mean to be the average for the past 10,000 years. This is the climate in which humans developed civilization, and is the climate which all living things on the planet are currently adapted to. Keeping to this temperature isn’t going to happen, however. The climate has already warmed nearly 2.5 degrees F since the Industrial Revolution, and by 2100 is expected to warm an additional 3.6 degrees F (2 degrees C) to 6 degrees C, which is an absurd amount of warming.
Milankovitch Cycles includes variations in the Earth’s eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession comprising the three dominant cycles with a periodicity of 100,000 years. Taken in unison, variations in these three cycles create alterations in the seasonality of solar radiation reaching the Earth’s surface. These times of increased or decreased solar radiation directly influence the Earth’s climate system, thus impacting the advance and retreat of Earth’s glaciers.
Man may try to change his carbon footprint but celestial mechanics are beyond human grasp. The hottest temperature ever recorded was 159.3 F (70.7 C) and the coldest temperature was minus 128.6 F. The average temperature on Earth is 61 degrees F (16 C). A few degrees up or down represents a smaller change than daylight and nighttime swings. In the final analysis there is no ideal temperature, at least as far as the planet is concerned.
Picture Credit : Google
