We should also be reluctant to extrapolate from recent weather experience. While the Earth's climate has been evolving and changing for more than four billion years, recordings of the temperature only cover about 150 years, or less than 0.00004 per cent of the entire pattern of evolving climate. Moreover, temperature records are wobbly before the 1950s and only cover a tiny proportion of the globe, mostly over land. If only a loud gun could be fired every time this phrase is used in lecture halls and conferences. Property has been constantly damaged by weather since time began and is constantly refurbished, knocked down or rebuilt, an activity that has happily contributed to global GDP growth for centuries.
Some scientists challenge whether there is long-term climate change at all.
Yet climate change models project a rise in temperature in the upper atmosphere at a faster rate because of increasing levels of greenhouse gas. The report counselled caution on reading long-term trends into the climate system from the evidence. Hot weather happens. Similar findings appear from an examination of destructive weather events. The intensity and frequency of hurricanes have not increased.