In December , world leadersmade an unprecedented agreementto limit human - do global thawing to 2 degrees Celsius , with a “ reach ” goal of 1.5 degrees . The Paris concord has n’t even been formally sign , and now , it ’s looking like our planetmight close in on that pass on goalby 2017 .
Over the past yr , the world has bang up so many temperature recordswe’ve grown desensitized — March 2016 marked the11th consecutive monthwhere global ordinary temperature hit an all - time high . AsI’ve hash out before , there are a telephone number of different component play into our planetary hot flash , include the2015 monster El Niñoand exchange to the distribution of estrus in the Pacific Ocean . Underlying it all is a universal heating tendency due to homo dumping some 40 billion tons of C dioxide into the air every yr .
Too soon ? I approximate > 99 % chance of an annual record in 2016 in@NASAGISStemperature information , based on Jan - Mar alonepic.twitter.com/mEDvHxfmjj
— Gavin Schmidt ( @ClimateOfGavin)April 15 , 2016
Carbon dioxide is the climate master copy dial that we need to crank up down , and we ’re not doing it yet . On Earth Day this calendar week , more than 150 governments areexpected to attend a symbolic signingof the Paris climate agreement . But the initial target date for start our global C diet was 2020 . Before we even embark on , it ’s looking like we might make the very warming milepost many hoped we ’d stay below .
OnTwitter this week , Gavin Schmidt , oral sex of NASA ’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies , gauge that the global average temperature in 2016 could land anywhere between 1.1 and just timid of 1.5 degrees above the foresighted - term average . There ’s still a great deal of dubiousness in this estimate . But what is well-defined is that we ’re edge dangerously tight to a braggart prey . What ’s more , it ’s very possible our world-wide thermoregulator will temporarily develop 1.5 degrees above pre - industrial levels this summertime . ( Italmost did in February . )
Of naturally , a milepost is just a milepost . But 1.5 degrees is an important one . It ’s a milestone that island nations like theMaldivesandKiribati , which are already go underwater , fought long and hard to keep in the text edition of the Paris agreement . It ’s a milepost marine biologists say we take to stand by toif we want to keep the cracking Barrier Reef alive .
Let ’s just hope that as creation leader get together this week to talk about climate for the first time since Paris , we can find a means to ratchet up the ambition even further .
[ New Scientist ]
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