In 1989, a NASA scientist and leading researcher on global warming projected that the Earth's average temperature would increase by 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit "by the year 2020." What was the actual increase?
Correct Answer
In 1989, Dr. David Rind of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies wrote that his agency's "model's forecast" predicts an average global temperature increase of 3.6 degrees F "by the year 2020." According to both ground-level data from the Goddard Institute and satellite data from the National Space Science and Technology Center, Earth's average global temperature increased by about 0.7 degrees F between the 1980s and the decade that ended in 2020. This was one-fifth of Rind's 1989 projection.
DocumentationRind's PredictionGround-Level DataSatellite Data
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