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It's plain common-sense that a big increase in one of the inputs to the climate has a good chance of causing disruptive change.

It is rarely noted (but undisputed) that the baseline climate response is logarithmic in carbon dioxide concentration (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius#Greenhouse_eff...). Since, absent feedback effects, exponential increases in CO2 levels lead to linear temperature changes, it's likely that common sense is not a reliable guide.



Hah, not that I'm saying that this guy's other views have anything to do with his ideas on climatology, but the paragraph after the one you linked is titled "Racial Biology." It doesn't end well: "...and the results formed the scientific basis for the Compulsory sterilization program in Sweden, as well as inspiring the Nazi eugenics in Germany."

Don't nobody jump down my throat or anything, the juxtaposition just made me laugh.


So what's the response in temperature when CO2 increases like this?

http://www.economist.com/images/mt_blog/democracyinamerica/c...

Is that geometric? Or worse?


Assuming that graph is an exponential increase in CO2, then there will be a linear (not geometric) increase temperature.

So it's considerably better, not worse.

A little calculus goes a long way.


I meant worse as in faster growth than geometric. It's quite possible, particularly with feedback taken into account.




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