Predictions differ drastically

Climate-change analyses recently released by Oregon State University and the International Energy Agency (IEA) offer drastically different predictions for the future of our planet.

Fatih Birol, the chief economist for the IEA, announced during the UN climate talks in Durban, South Africa, that current global energy consumption has the planet on pace to warm by almost 11 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100, according to the Washington Post. Meanwhile, Oregon State researchers, along with colleagues from Harvard, Princeton, Cornell and the University of Barcelona, concluded in their study funded by the National Science Foundation’s paleoclimate program that extreme temperature increase is highly unlikely.

The Oregon State study used ice-core samples from the Antarctic ice sheet to calculate carbon-dioxide levels during the last ice age, and used the data to run model projections that found a doubling of the planet’s CO2 levels would result in an increase of 3.1 to 4.7 degrees Fahrenheit from pre-industrial levels.