The planet is hot and it's getting hotter fast, much faster than many "experts" predicted...
Our climate has crossed the dangerous 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warming threshold 50 years or more ahead of long-held projections, according to data analysis by a major climate organization. Of the four major Earth temperature evaluations released for 2023 so far, Berkeley Earth is at 1.54°C, the European Meteorological Service is at 1.48°C, the World Meteorological Service is at 1.45°C, and NASA is at 1.44°C.
In 2023, every month from June to December was warmer than the previous record warm month, something never before seen in the temperature record. Almost half of the days in 2023 were warmer than 1.5°C, more than doubling the previous record. Two days in November were above 2°C, a first ever occurrence.
Almost all climate change impacts are happening decades, generations and even a century ahead of projections.
This extreme jump in temperature can no longer be altered by simply eliminating future emissions. It has been caused by current warming from prior emissions, including feedback emissions, from collapsing Earth systems, and from cascading effects that amplify warming nonlinearly. In just two years in 2023 and 2024, global temperatures could rise as much as half of all excess planetary warming humanity has experienced in the last 200 years.
The 1.5°C warming threshold has now been surpassed in a big way. James Hansen, the retired but still publishing 32-year director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (the de facto United States climate modeling agency), says it’s quite likely that Earth’s temperature will not fall below 1.5°C again (unless we restore our climate, of course). We should anticipate climate disruptions far more extreme than what we have endured so far, as end-of-century impacts are now advancing to our immediate future.
Climate scientists warned us that if we did not reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, planetary warming would advance into a new and more acute mode where solutions become different, impacts increase nonlinearly and effects become irreversible. They urged us to understand that actions to limit emissions would likely eliminate the risk of entering this more acute warming mode, and that delay and lesser-than-suggested actions could cause warming acceleration to arrive sooner, with more extreme impacts and existential risks.
Over the last 30 years, the accumulated concentration of excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has doubled. And in the last 10 years, the planet’s warming rate has more than doubled, amplified by the greenhouse gases already accumulated in our atmosphere. If we had stopped emissions a decade or more ago, we would still be seeing the current vault in global temperature from warming already locked in because cessation of emissions does not halt warming in time frames that matter.
That's just part of an informative, must-read analysis. Check out the rest!
This is why I don't give any credence to reports that talk about any goals or predictions beyond 2050 - all of the honest climate scientists are sounding the alarm that predictions on every climate change effect are happening much sooner than once predicted.
Add in the accompanying societal breakdown in response to these climate breakdowns and you've got another accelerator.
Obfuscating the totality of the problem by focusing on one aspect of climate change, while promising corrective measures that are untenable and actually add to the problem.
Ofc co2 is a major problem, but others are also pieces of the puzzle; deforestation, polluted skies, lands and waters, shrinking water reserves, degraded soils, the loss of biodiversity and wild lands.
Those things must never be fully acknowledged much less addressed, by leadership.
If they were properly addressed, it would mean an end to business as usual, meaning an end to their profits.
@breadandcircuses I wonder why you felt the need to type "experts" with double quotes. I mean, I'm sure you already knew what was going to happen, good for you. Shame you didn't tell us.