Sawyer predicted global warming rate in 1972
Nature: Neville Nicholls from Monash University in Australia reminds readers of Nature that thirty-five years ago this week, atmospheric scientist J. S. Sawyer published (Nature 239, 23–26; 1972) a prediction that a 25% increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide predicted to occur by 2000 corresponded to an increase of 0.6 °C in world temperature. In fact global surface temperature rose about 0.5 °C between the early 1970s and 2000.
As the prediction was made during a period in which global temperatures had been falling in the decades, "Sawyer's prediction of a reversal of this trend, and of the correct magnitude of the warming, is perhaps the most remarkable long-range forecast ever made," says Nicholls.
