World is close to breaking 1.5C global heating
Human-induced climate change has driven average temperatures up.
What you need to know:
- The United Kingdom’s Meteorological Office (Met Office) estimated that there is a 48 per cent chance that the average global temperature of any year between 2022 and 2026 will be more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels while noting that for the previous five –year period (2017 to 2021), the chance, which is now 50-50, was less than 10 per cent.
Scientists now warn that the world will soon overshoot the 1.5C global heating limit set by international governments for the first time ever.
This is after the United Kingdom’s Meteorological Office (Met Office) estimated that there is a 48 per cent chance that the average global temperature of any year between 2022 and 2026 will be more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels while noting that for the previous five –year period (2017 to 2021), the chance, which is now 50-50, was less than 10 per cent.
The revelations come after the Paris Agreement set an aim to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, which experts say is threshold that is seen as vital for limiting the most devastating impacts of global warming on human beings as well as the ecosystem. According to Leon Hermanson, an official from the Met Office who carried out the study, the prediction shows how close the world is to failing on its climate goals.
“It’s not a magic threshold, and things are not going to suddenly change,” he observes. “One year’s exceedance doesn’t mean anything; it just means that we’re getting closer and it’s a warning that we need to really double up on the efforts to cut carbon dioxide and reduce our use of fossil fuels.”
The expert further highlights that the reason the chance of temporarily hitting 1.5°C has increased is a combination of continued carbon emissions pushing Earth closer to the threshold, and new temperature data causing researchers to revise upwards their estimates of past warming since pre-industrial times. “ As human-induced climate change has driven average temperatures up, the chances of natural cycles such as El Niño pushing us over 1.5°C have increased.”
El Niño can raise temperatures by 0.2 to 0.3°C. Hermanson’s report titled Global Annual to Decadal Climate Update further finds that there is a 93 per cent chance that one of the next five years will eclipse 2016 as the warmest on record.
His findings are nothing to write home about for those residing in California, which he predicts will keep on experiencing a spell of dry weather that will continue inviting forest fires. However, he points out that there is some good news for North Africa and more specifically Sahel region, where he expects that rain-dependent subsistence farmers will continue seeing wetter conditions than in the past 30 years.
In April, a major report published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change disclosed that there are still pathways where emissions fall enough to stay under 1.5°C of warming. “Whether that conclusion can be squared with the new study depends on the uncertainties in the models, including how sensitive the climate is to greenhouse gases,” says Mr Graham Madge, a spokesperson for the Met Office.
