Читать книгу Climate Change For Dummies - Elizabeth May - Страница 74

Three or four degrees F seems like a small number to make a big deal about. You may even be thinking that an extra 3.6 degrees F (2 degrees C) seems like a perfect amount of global warming. Your garden would grow better, you’d be hitting the beach more often, and the golf season might be longer, right? But 3.6 degrees F (2 degrees C) is actually a lot. The IPCC reports that the global average temperature in the middle of the last ice age was only 10 degrees F (5.5 degrees C) colder than it is today.

This increase of 3.6 degrees F refers to the average global temperature, but average numbers hide the extremes on either end. For example, you can dive into a pool that has an average depth of 1 foot (30 centimeters) if it’s 10 feet (3 meters) at the deep end. Right now, the average global temperature is 60 degrees F (15.6 degrees C). Of course, temperatures can be much colder than that in the winter and way warmer in the summer. In that same 60-degree Fahrenheit (15.6-degree Celsius) global average, you can go skiing in the Alps or swimming in the Caribbean.