Climate data for 2024 offer a stark warning for the future

Scientists have issued a stark warning about climate change after the planet reached a major warming milestone in 2024.

Newly released data from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service showed last week that the world’s average surface temperature was more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer on average last year than before industrialization.

US data showed the world was just shy of the 1.5 degree threshold.

In order to avoid some of the worst and most irreversible impacts of climate change, policymakers must try to limit temperature rises to that standard, scientists said. The 1.5 degree standard was stipulated in the Paris Agreement, in which most countries of the world pledged to work to prevent the world from exceeding it in an attempt to protect against these effects.

Just because the Earth has reached the 1.5 degree threshold for just one year does not necessarily mean that it has warmed permanently significantly. However, the data is a stark reminder that the planet is slowly approaching irreversible damage.

“In some ways, this is certainly a very important and very sad milestone for the world, and just a real wake-up call that the climate crisis is here,” said Lori Geller, an atmospheric scientist who directs the Office of Peer-Reviewed Science. At the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group.

“But in other ways, I think it’s less serious than some people think,” she added.

When scientists and the global Paris Agreement talk about limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees, they usually mean for a period longer than one year.

The United Nations website stated, “Monthly and annual violations of 1.5 degrees Celsius do not mean that the world has failed to achieve the temperature target set in the Paris Agreement, which refers to a long-term increase in temperatures over decades, not individual months or years.” .

However, Alex Rowan, associate director of the Climate Impacts Group at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, noted that years are generally getting warmer, not cooler.

“We are continuing 10-year periods that are much warmer than the previous 10-year periods. Climate change is critical,” said Ruane, who is also a research scientist at Columbia University and worked on the most recent UN climate report. “So we don’t see much room for temperatures to come back down unless policies change.”

“In this sense, crossing this threshold indicates that we will live in an environment warmer than 1.5 degrees for a while,” he added.

According to US data, the 10 warmest years on Earth since records began in 1850 all occurred in the past decade.

Last year’s grim event comes as raging California wildfires highlight the dangers that come with rising temperatures. Climate change has made the western United States more vulnerable to raging wildfires because when the temperature is hotter, the air requires more moisture and makes vegetation drier. This dry vegetation can be fuel that exacerbates the fire.

One reason scientists are urging the global community to try to limit global warming is to avoid crossing “tipping points” – extreme environmental damage from climate change that is difficult to reverse.

These include the potential melting of the Greenland ice sheet, the dramatic decline of the Amazon rainforest, and the collapse of the Atlantic Ocean currents that help regulate global temperature.

Going beyond 1.5 degrees on a more sustainable basis would bring the world closer to some of these points. One study, for example, estimated that the Greenland ice sheet could see sudden melting once warming reaches between 1.7 and 2.3 degrees Celsius (3.1 and 4.1 degrees Fahrenheit).

“Some of these global turning points are large, active areas of research, but they are not magically or directly linked to 1.5 alone,” Rowan said.

“The warmer the world gets, the closer we get to these kinds of tipping points,” he added.

But scientists say every additional warming also matters.

“This is just another step down the road where, you know, 1.5 is worse than 1.49, but 1.51 is worse than 1.5,” Rowan said.

Gisela Winkler, a climate professor at Columbia University, added that every increase in temperature means additional damage to people and the planet.

“That means a whole list of impacts that we’re seeing,” Winkler said, adding that this includes “increasing extreme weather events, whether it’s drought on the one hand, but also extreme precipitation events… through increased water vapor in the atmosphere.” atmosphere as a result of global warming.”