Global temperatures hit an important threshold in June. Scientists say it’s a sign of things to come
Global temperatures briefly exceeded a major warming threshold earlier this month, a hint of heat and the damage to come, scientists worry.
The mercury has since dipped again, but experts say the brief spike marked a new global heat record for June and points to more extremes ahead as the planet enters an El Niño phase that could last for years.
Researchers from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service said on Thursday that global surface air temperatures rose 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels for the first time in early June. That’s the threshold governments said at a Paris summit in 2015 they would try to stay within.
“Just because we temporarily went over 1.5 degrees doesn’t mean we’ve crossed the Paris Agreement limit,” warned Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the Copernicus program. For that to happen, the world has to cross that threshold for a much longer period of time, like a few decades instead of a few weeks.
Scientists worry about future peaks
Still, the 11 days spent on the 1.5-degree threshold show how important it is for scientists to keep a close eye on the health of the planet, not least because previous peaks above 1.5 all occurred in winter or spring in the Northern Hemisphere, she said. . “It’s really critical to monitor the situation, to understand what implications this has for the coming summer.”
“As a climate scientist, I feel like I’m watching a global train wreck in slow motion. It’s quite frustrating,” said Andrew Weaver of the University of Victoria, who was not part of the measurements.
That’s because a three-year La Niña phase — which tends to dampen the effects of global warming — has given way to its opposite, an El Niño period, which could add another half degree or more to the average. temperature.
“2024 is expected to be even warmer than 2023 as this El Niño continues to develop,” Burgess said.
“We also know the warmer the global climate is, the more likely we are to have extreme events and the more severe those extreme events can be,” she said. “So there is a direct correlation between the rate of global warming and the frequency and intensity of extreme events.”
Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research said the Copernicus data “is a reminder of how close we are to the 1.5C global warming limit, above which there are major risks to humanity in terms of climate instability and ecosystem losses.”
Rob Jackson, a Stanford University climate scientist who, like Rahmstorf, was not involved in collecting the Copernicus data, said its significance is still unclear.
“But sometime in the next few years we will break global temperature records,” he said.
“It’s the coming El Niño, yes. But it’s not just El Niño. We loaded up the climate system. It shouldn’t surprise anyone if we set extensive global records. 1.5 C is coming soon; it could already be here.”
