The explosive eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano may be one of the largest recorded in such detail. The blast was visible from space, with images of the massive ash plume going viral over the following days. But just how big was it?
The underwater volcano erupted with a deafening explosion on Jan. 15, triggering deadly tsunamis, covering islands in ash, and knocking out communications for Tonga’s 105,000 people
The event was captured in astonishing detail by satellites including the NOAA GOES-West satellite, shown below.
It is now almost a third of a century since 1990, when IPCC made its first predictions about the weather. Since IPCC (2021) continues to predict the same 3 C° midrange long-term warming (equilibrium doubled-CO2 sensitivity, or ECS, broadly equivalent to 20th-century anthropogenic warming from all sources) as in 1990, it is high time someone examined IPCC’s medium-term predictions to shed light on the plausibility of its long-term predictions.
IPCC’s key medium-term prediction in 1990 was as follows –
“Based on current model results, we predict:
“under the IPCC Business-as-Usual (Scenario A) emissions of greenhouse gases, a rate of increase of global mean temperature during the next century of about 0.3 C° per decade (with an uncertainty range of 0.2 C° to 0.5 C° per decade). This is greater than that seen over the past 10,000 years. This will result in a likely increase in global mean temperature of about 1 C° above the present value by 2025 and 3 C° before the end of the next century. The rise will not be steady because of the influence of other factors.”
IPCC also predicted as follows –
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