Quote:Earth breaches 1.5 °C climate limit for the first time: what does it mean?
The threshold has been exceeded for only one year so far, but humanity is nearing the end of what many thought was a ‘safe zone’ as climate change worsens.
It’s official: Earth’s average temperature climbed more than 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels for the first time in 2024.
Climate scientists announced the breach today, signalling that the world has failed, at least temporarily, to avoid crossing the threshold set by governments to avert the worst impacts of global warming. For the time being, it’s just one metric and one year, but researchers say that it nonetheless serves as a stark reminder that the world is moving into dangerous territory — perhaps more quickly than previously thought.
Look at the UAH chart to end Dec 2024:
Quote: last year, Earth’s temperature hit 1.55 °C above the average for 1850–1900 — considered to be a ‘pre-industrial’ period before humans began pouring large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Unexpectedly, the 2024 figure also shows a statistically significant increase over that for 2023, when heat records were set. Climate scientists are investigating whether the two-year temperature surge is a blip or whether it marks a change in Earth’s climate system that means global warming is speeding up.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00010-9It may be that the extreme heat is retreating a bit, but AGW is still at work. Why temperatures spiked so much for so long is still not known. Temperatures, once the spike in temperatures is over temperatures will resume their over 0.2°C per decade climb and sooner or later we will be back, then past, the temperatures at the top of the spike.
This could have been posted in “Environment” but the incompetent Mod of that unhappy board has me permanently banned on a lie of abuse. He should be made Mod of Toolshed, he can just about manage that.