Year above 1.5C suggests world is reaching long term warming threshold – studies A year with temperatures more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels mean it is likely the world is reaching the key long-term warming threshold, studies suggest.
In a second paper, scientists from Germany looked at real-world observations of already-reached warming levels and climate models, and showed that the first single year exceeding each threshold have consistently fallen with the first 20 year period which averaged the same level of warming.
And they said that by rapidly slowing down the warming rate, stringent near-term action to curb climate change has the potential to substantially reduce risks of exceeding 1.5C of warming soon after the first year of heat at that level has occurred.
They said it was very unlikely for the temperature of a single year to largely exceed the long term average, and 2024’s record heat signals that “most probably” Earth has already entered a 20-year period at 1.5C warming, they said.
Dr Vikki Thompson, scientist at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, said: “These studies use data from both observational sources and multiple climate models to show we should now expect to exceed the Paris Agreement within the next 20 years, much sooner than climate projections had suggested.
