According to the World Meteorological Organization, there is a 66% chance over the next five years that the Earth’s global temperature will exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels for at least one year.
A combination of the continued accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere along with a looming El Niño condition will contribute to surging temperatures. The WMO also reports that there is a 98% likelihood that at least one of the next five years will be the warmest on record and that the five-year period as a whole will be the warmest on record.
Reaching or surpassing the 1.5-degree threshold may only be temporary but would be the strongest indication yet of how quickly climate change is accelerating. The 1.5-degree point is considered by many scientists to be a key tipping point, beyond which the chances of extreme flooding, drought, wildfires, heatwaves, and food shortages could increase dramatically.
The world has already seen about 1.2 degrees of warming as we continue to burn fossil fuels and produce enormous quantities of greenhouse gas emissions. As recently as 2015, the WMO put the chance of breaching the 1.5-degree threshold as close to zero.
It is important to understand that the 1.5-degree temperature increase is an average for the entire planet. Many individual locations around the world have been experiencing tremendously greater amounts of warming with record-breaking temperatures.
The 1.5-degree threshold is important, but it is not itself a tipping point. There is still time to reduce global warming by moving away from fossil fuels and towards clean energy. But the clock is ticking and so far, the world is not showing any urgency.
**********
Web Links
‘Sounding the alarm’: World on track to breach a critical warming threshold in the next five years
Photo, posted May 20, 2015, courtesy of Kevin Gill via Flickr.
Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio
