- Global temperature rise has exceeded the critical 1.5 degree threshold for the fourth time in nine years.
- The 2015 Paris Agreement set 1.5 degrees as the level past which global average temperature rise should not be allowed to go.
- Beyond 1.5 degrees, climate change, sea level rise and extreme weather events are expected to escalate further and become much harder to tolerate.
The increase, recorded in early June, is expected to be temporary as with the incidents in 2015, 2016, and 2020.
Scientists say, however, that the increasing frequency of temperature exceedance is a worrying indication that predictions of a permanent rise are becoming a reality.
They said this morning that monitoring and heeding exceedance was now more important than ever.
The 2015 Paris Agreement signed by almost all of the world’s nations set 1.5 degrees as the level past which global average temperature rise should not be allowed to go.
The spike in temperatures was recorded by the European Union’s Copernicus climate change observation service.
It has traced global temperature fluctuations since 1940–a period of time it refers to as ERA5. There were no breaches of the 1.5 threshold up to 2014.
In a bulletin posted this morning [15 June 2023], Copernicus said the background to the exceedance was also exceptional.
“Global-mean surface air temperatures for the first days of June 2023 were the highest in the ERA5 data record for early June by a substantial margin,” it said.
That followed “a May during which sea-surface temperatures were at unprecedented levels for the time of year.”
“The world has just experienced its warmest early June on record, following a month of May that was less than 0.1 degrees cooler than the warmest May on record,” said Samantha Burgess of Copernicus Climate Change.
“Monitoring our climate is more important than ever to determine how often and for how long global temperatures are exceeding 1.5 degrees.
“Every single fraction of a degree matters to avoid even more severe consequences of the climate crisis.”
The breach comes shortly after the World Meteorological Organization warned that breaches of 1.5 degrees would be more likely in the next few years because of the expectation that an El Niño climate pattern would develop later this year.
El Niño is a naturally recurring phenomenon that brings a phase of warmer temperatures to many parts of the planet.
Its impact on an already heating planet could be devastating.
The influential US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced last week it believed El Niño had already begun.
Link to | New Climate Alert as 1.5 °C Global Warming Limit Breached for Fourth Time.in nine years.