How Much Does The World’s Temperature Rise By Per Tonne Of CO2?

Posted on 12. Jun, 2009 by Ross in Climate Change

According to an article being published today in Nature, researchers have found a definitive and quantitative link between carbon dioxide emissions and global warming, enabling people to calculate how much the average global temperature has increased due to their own actions.

You’ve installed a smart meter to monitor your home energy use. You’ve looked up how much carbon dioxide that equates to using one of the various carbon footprint tools which now pervade the internet. So what’s next?

According to the research, every tonne of carbon dioxide that you emit will result in a 0.0000000000015 degree rise in global temperature. That’s around 15 trillionths of a degree for the average US citizen per year.

Of course, this doesn’t tell us anything particularly new: climate change has now become an accepted scientific reality for most people around the world who accept the fact that their energy use is affecting the future of the planet. It doesn’t matter whether we measure our impact on climate change in kWh, tCO₂, °C or even the cost to our wallets: what matters is the actions that we take in reducing that impact.

Becoming more energy-efficient in our choices and our actions is the only way to help prevent the worst-case climate scenarios. Try making a climate scientist happy for a change: give them some good news to report on in the future.

Image by Axel Buhrmann @ Flickr