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Originally Posted by pgrmdave
Nobody in particular, I'm just curious as to whether there is a scientifically determined 'good temperature' or not.
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There's no 'good temperature', as far as I know. This is to say if you want to peg down the average Summer/Winter temperatures to a few degrees. It will always vary from year to year. There have been Ice Ages followed by warm ages according to the ice cores, and they have been cycling for millions of years.
The problem comes in when the temperatures climb or fall
too quick. A drop (or rise) of a few degrees on average over a thousand or so years is completely natural. The same change over a few decades is disastrous.
The
rate of change is the enemy here - but if you want to define a 'good temperature' for Earth, I suppose that'll be any temperature that allows life. Problem here, of course, is that the variation in that specific 'good temperature' will be from -80C to more than 180C if you allow for extremophiles...
