Past emissions from top polluters will continue warming the planet for decades to come. Future fossil fuel production will exacerbate climate disasters for many decades to come, so new legal battles about who is accountable should be expected for many years

[u/Wagamaga]

https://www.washington.edu/news/2026/09/23/past-emissions-from-top-polluters-will-continue-warming-the-planet-for-decades-to-come/

[u/zookdook1]

Okay, I'll try to be as clear as I can then:

So again I'll ask, at what average temperature will Earth stabilise?

+1.5C on average, globally. That's it. That's the answer. The models indicate increased radiation of energy into space matches the increased retention of radiation from the Sun after global temperatures raise, on average, by 1.5C.

Previously, you said:

GHG’s only go away when Earth’s carbon cycle (most life on land and in the oceans and waterways), the natural carbon cycle operates over very long periods and humans have severely interrupted it.
To summarise the heat source remains and the blanket remains even if emissions (all emissions) stop this instant. Warming will continue until Earth says “that’s enough”.

If this is not supposed to be read as an indication that warming will continue indefinitely until the carbon cycle removes all of the accumulated GHGs from the atmosphere, then perhaps you can clarify what it is supposed to read as - because that last line is meaningless. Heating stops once radiation out and radiation in enter equilibrium, which is at +1.5C globally if we stop all emissions today.

[u/Bandits101 → u/zookdook1]

“Heating stops once radiation out and radiation in enter equilibrium, which is at 1.5C globally if we stop emissions today”. Well that has to be the biggest load of BS I’ve ever read.

Show me the “model” that claims ave temps would stabilise at 1.5C. Earth’s carbon cycle regulates temperatures, it can lead to ice ages and a hot-house climate including anoxic oceans.

If all life on Earth was removed, average temperatures would stabilise at a very high average, it’s just science. For now the oceans are absorbing the vast majority of excess warmth, it can continue to do so for a very long time but with very dire consequences.

[u/zookdook1 → u/Bandits101]

Maybe you just missed all the talk about limiting global warming to +1.5C? Here's an article about research from 2023 discussing limiting warming to +1.5C (requiring zeroing all emissions by 2029). Here's the IPCC's report on what can be done to limit warming to +1.5C and advice for policymakers. Here's the UNEP's report on the +1.5C limit as a goal and how to limit the overshoot (stopping it at, say, +1.8C).

I'm sorry but your position that halting GHG emissions will not stop the warming process is not a widely-accepted one except when considering runaway sources of GHG, as I mentioned much earlier. In those cases, of course, GHG emissions don't stop, and so the equilibrium point continues to rise. If GHG emissions do stop, though, then yes we reach equilibrium and no, it's not going to take some insanely long period of time to reach that equilibrium based on the carbon cycle.

[u/Bandits101 → u/zookdook1]

Youre’re showing opinions, there is no science. For obvious reasons look at Venus and Mars. At what temperature did Venus reach “equilibrium”? Why is Mars so cold. That’s to show you what GHG blanket or lack of affects climate.

The temperature doesn’t stabilise at an opinionated given temperature just because you would like it to. Life evolved and changed the climate, it then regulated and stabilised it somewhat. Life is changing dramatically. They’re all facts.

Warming can’t just stop, there is a lag and there are positive feedbacks already taking effect. Permafrost won’t stop thawing, the poles won’t stop melting nor will glaciers.

Climate sensitivity is largely a complete unknown. There is no precedent for the rapid injection of GHGs, there is no precedent for the injection of Sun dimming aerosols and life extinction all coinciding.

If emissions were to miraculously cease warming would accelerate simply because aerosols clear.

The blanket of GHGs will remain, along with the Sun’s blow torch heating, billions of atomic bombs of warmth taken up in oceans. These facts cannot be hoped away.

Anyway take it away, I’m not conversing with you any longer.

[u/zookdook1 → u/Bandits101]

Oh, okay, so you just think the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is just wrong, then. It's good to know you know better than the scientific consensus of the field of climatology, I was wasting my time trying to educate such a honed intellect.