{"id":278,"date":"2024-08-07T11:26:56","date_gmt":"2024-08-07T11:26:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climate-reality.net\/?page_id=278"},"modified":"2026-05-10T15:58:27","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T15:58:27","slug":"why-has-the-earths-temperature-kept-within-the-habitable-range","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/climate-reality.net\/?page_id=278","title":{"rendered":"Why has the earth’s temperature kept within the habitable range?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For thousands of years, the earth’s temperature has never varied more than a one or two degrees celsius. A rise or fall of 1\u00baC is approximately equal to one-third of one percent when measured from absolute zero. So the change in the earth’s temperature since the end of the last ice age has not been as much as 1%. Why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is, first, because incoming radiation has balanced outgoing radiation. Incoming radiation from the sun has remained relatively constant over the historical period, as discussed on my page about the sun. We have noted on the greenhouse gas science page<\/a> that outgoing radiation takes place from the stratosphere. Outgoing radiation is governed by the Planck response: This is that radiation emitted varies by the fourth power<\/strong> of the absolute temperature), which, when applied to the earth’s temperature, shows that outgoing radiation will change by about 1% for every 1\/3% change in absolute temperature, i.e. 1\u00ba C. So if some change in the sun adds say 2% more heating to the earth and therefore would try to cause temperatures of the stratosphere to rise by say 6% kelvin (-273C) or 16C outgoing radiation would increase by 48%. Effectively, almost no change would take place. In fact, since the stratosphere has become colder with warmer temperatures below the greenhouse blanket, radiation to space has been decreasing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ground temperatures have kept within a narrow range throughout eight thousand years until recently, because the greenhouse blanket of the earth remained almost constant. A discussion of how the short and long carbon cycles maintained constant greenhouse gas levels is beyond the scope of this website. There are many Internet articles about this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For thousands of years, the earth’s temperature has never varied more than a one or two degrees celsius. A rise […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-278","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/climate-reality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/climate-reality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/climate-reality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climate-reality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climate-reality.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=278"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/climate-reality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":820,"href":"https:\/\/climate-reality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/278\/revisions\/820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/climate-reality.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}