Humanity is warming the planet at a record speed so far. And that is not a positive thing. This follows from a new study, the authors of which show a significant acceleration of global warming. The researchers removed the influence of natural climate fluctuations, such as the El Niño phenomenon, solar cycles or volcanic eruptions, from the analysis.
And they found that the rate of warming of the planet has increased significantly. While between 1970 and 2015 global temperature rose at a steady rate of less than 0.2°C per decadehas increased by about 0.35 °C per decade in the last ten years. This is the highest pace since 1880, when scientists began systematically measuring the Earth’s temperature.
“If the rate of warming of the last ten years were to be maintained, it would lead to a long-term exceedance of the limit 1.5 °C set by the Paris Agreement even before 2030,” said climatologist Stefan Rahmstorf from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
According to scientists, the extreme heat of recent years was partly influenced by natural factors, for example the aforementioned El Niño phenomenon. These impacts have led some experts to question whether the record temperatures are just short-term fluctuations. The researchers therefore used a “noise” suppression method that removed the estimated influence of non-human factors from the five main global temperature data sets. In all cases it turned out that the acceleration of warming appeared around 2013 or 2014.
Climatologist Zeke Hausfather of Berkeley Earth, who was not involved in the study, said: “There is now fairly broad – though not quite universal – agreement that there has been a measurable acceleration of warming in recent years. However, it is not clear how much of the additional warming in the last decade is due to external forcing and how much is natural variability.”
According to scientists, the planet is primarily heated by a blanket of carbon gases. Since the pre-industrial era, the Earth has warmed by approximately 1.4°C. A recent decline in cooling sulfur pollutants, which previously provided a temporary cooling effect, also contributed to the warming. According to the analysis of data from the Copernicus program could the world exceed the limit of long-term warming by 1.5 °C already this yearunless the rate of warming slows down. The other four data sets analyzed indicate crossing this threshold in 2028 or 2029.
