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Earth

World's First Year-Long Breach of Key 1.5C Warming Limit (bbc.com) 302

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: For the first time, global warming has exceeded 1.5C across an entire year, according to the EU's climate service. World leaders promised in 2015 to try to limit the long-term temperature rise to 1.5C, which is seen as crucial to help avoid the most damaging impacts. This first year-long breach doesn't break that landmark Paris agreement, but it does bring the world closer to doing so in the long-term.

Urgent action to cut carbon emissions can still slow warming, scientists say. "This far exceeds anything that is acceptable," Prof Sir Bob Watson, a former chair of the UN's climate body, told the BBC Radio 4's Today Program. "Look what's happened this year with only 1.5C -- we've seen floods, we've seen droughts, we've seen heatwaves and wildfires all over the world." The period from February 2023 to January 2024 reached 1.52C of warming, according to the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service. The following graph [here] shows how that compares with previous years.

The world's sea surface is also at its highest ever recorded average temperature -- yet another sign of the widespread nature of climate records. As the chart [here] shows, it's particularly notable given that ocean temperatures don't normally peak for another month or so. Science groups differ slightly on precisely how much temperatures have increased, but all agree that the world is in by far its warmest period since modern records began -- and likely for much longer.

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World's First Year-Long Breach of Key 1.5C Warming Limit

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  • We're boned (Score:2, Insightful)

    by OrangeTide ( 124937 )

    Urgent action is basically impossible without international agreement. We're struggling to keep China from taking over the gas fields in the South China Sea, let alone a dozen other territorial conflicts that amount to fossil fuel resources. Telling them not only to stop their bullshit but to also stop using fossil fuels all together is going to be a hard sell and take long-term diplomacy and a redirecting of multiple economies.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      Read the article. The conservatives in the UK dismantled their $28 billion green energy program. The world is literally being pillaged by neocon zerglings.

      • The conservatives in the UK dismantled their $28 billion green energy program.

        Eh... that's not quite what happened. Labour had to abandon the commitment because fiscal conditions mean that it is simply unaffordable. The Conservatives are arguably in many ways responsible for those fiscal conditions, but to say they "dismantled" the program implies that they were targeting it specifically.

    • A nuclear war with Russia will throw enough dust into the air to solve global warming for at least 5000 years.
    • Re:We're boned (Score:5, Interesting)

      by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Friday February 09, 2024 @03:23AM (#64226826)
      To me, it looks like the fossil fuel corporations & their interests make up a significant percentage of our governments & gubernatorial decision & policy making. If that's the case, we won't make sufficient progress unless we have a purge. By purge, I don't mean imprisonment &/or executions, like revolutions of the C19th & C20th, I mean finding out who has vested interests & getting those people to testify publicly to their roles in contributing to causing global heating, without prejudice, & then deciding the best ways to move forward in more open, transparent, democratic, & less corrupt ways. You know, like a truth & reconciliation type thing. How does that sound?
    • Re:We're boned (Score:4, Insightful)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Friday February 09, 2024 @03:51AM (#64226848)

      We're struggling to keep China from

      We're struggling to keep China from producing even a fractions of the emissions per capita that we produce. But they are the problem because we got ours and therefore they should stay poor for the sake of the planet.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Not really, no. China agreed a very aggressive goal of peaking its emissions in 2030 at the last Paris summit. In fact they are due to peak around 2025, i.e. in the next year or two.

        While it's still not enough, the reality is that China does take the climate emergency seriously and is taking strong action to address it. We can negotiate with them and they stick to their promises, in fact they greatly exceed them.

        The real issue with China is that WE aren't willing to work with them. China installed more sola

      • by skam240 ( 789197 )

        Increasing emissions are increasing emissions. It doesn't matter that they produce less than us when their increases more than cancel out our own decreases. Global warming doesn't give a toss about what's fair in terms of economic development.

    • by gtall ( 79522 )

      Maybe the desertification of parts of China will get their attention: https://www.worldbank.org/en/r... [worldbank.org]

      But then again, Xi Jinping is mostly concerned with taking Taiwan to distract his mainlanders from getting the idea that Chinese do not need a parasitic leach like the CCC to succeed in the world.

  • by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Thursday February 08, 2024 @10:45PM (#64226574)

    I believe in anthropogenic climate change - that we are, in fact, warming the planet by releasing vast quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere.

    I also believe it's not going to be a great ride as climate zones shift and coastal areas become marine habitats and the energy available to power storms grows.

    Having thrown all those disclaimers in, I do want some better context for the last year. If last year hit the 1.5c threshold, what would the normal expected variation from the previous year's average temperature be? Is this a peak with a potential minor 'relapse', or is it the new low and we keep going up consistently? Is a single year enough to update our measurements of the rate of global warming?

    Then we can move on to why - loss of ice coverage, reduced cloud cover, increased CO2, methane release from thawed former 'perma'-frost... whatever.

    None of which really changes what we should be doing and mostly aren't, but I'd still like better detail. I'm not a climatologist with a PhD, but I'm not a drooling moron either - I have the capacity to understand more than a single-sentence shock headline.

    • The best chart I have come across for seeing the data in a way that answers your question is here: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/1... [nytimes.com]

      The variations are clear and we can see that in the next 8 years +/- a couple we would expect to see a year as exceptionally warmer than this year as this year was over the last extreme year which was 2016, perhaps a 1.54+ degree year.
    • Look at the temperature chart in the article. The rise in temperature is exponential. 50 years to go from 0 to 1C. 10 years to go from 1 to 1.5 C. You can guesstimate what's "expected" just by looking at that graph.

      • Look at the temperature chart in the article. The rise in temperature is exponential. 50 years to go from 0 to 1C. 10 years to go from 1 to 1.5 C. You can guesstimate what's "expected" just by looking at that graph.

        Useful to remember carbon based atmospheric heating is constrained by saturation effect. There is increasing diminishing returns as a function of increased concentration. Absorption for CO2 only works in certain IR bands and existing atmospheric concentrations already place it into diminishing returns territory. Having said that much of the contributions have yet to equilibrate so things will certainly continue to get worse.

        • Useful to remember carbon based atmospheric heating is constrained by saturation effect. There is increasing diminishing returns as a function of increased concentration. Absorption for CO2 only works in certain IR bands and existing atmospheric concentrations already place it into diminishing returns territory. Having said that much of the contributions have yet to equilibrate so things will certainly continue to get worse.

          Its not useful at all because it isn't true, it isn't supported by the physics, obse

    • It's essentially a line of best fit on a massive, dense scatter plot. They do this, on a smaller scale of course, all the time in the social sciences. The thing that makes the difference isn't the statistical calculations, although it's important to get those right & use the appropriate ones, it's the quality & representativeness of the data going in. I suspect that they're doing a good enough job at that to give a generally accurate, useful idea of what's happening.
    • by gtall ( 79522 ) on Friday February 09, 2024 @05:05AM (#64226920)

      Why don't you just google for the climate stats instead of expecting us to give a list of references you won't read?

    • Sounds like you want to study some actual climate science basics. Good. Slashdot is probably not the best place, since it is a debate forum. There are plenty other resources, and not that hard to find.

  • by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Thursday February 08, 2024 @11:15PM (#64226624) Journal
    China continues to add massive amounts of new coal plants. Yes, ppl scream that they are adding PV/Wind, but the fact remains that their coal usage is going way up. Ad to that the fact that China continue to build new coal plants at undeveloped nations, even to the point of threatening them to build these (part of BRI).
    Then we have India who is building loads of new coal plants. They are 3rd largest emitter of CO2 and like China, continue to grow their GHG emissions.

    The west accounts for less than 1/3 of emissions, and are dropping, but not fast enough. As it is, the west, esp. America, have dropped emissions for the last couple of years that equals what undeveloped nations, including India, increased by. But then you add in CHina and they continue to grow theirs massively each year.

    The ONLY way for this to go down is IFF western nations will start taxing all of our consumed goods based on where the worst part/sub-service comes from. And skip looking at levels, just look at direction. But this will not happen.
    • by CAIMLAS ( 41445 )

      "Not fast enough"

      The West as a whole is at pre-industrial levels of emissions. They've been dropping for decades. How low do you think we can go? Given the population is many times as large, I'm thinking there's a limit to how little we can dump pollutants into the air.

      I'm not saying it's pointless, but it's definitely self-defeating to compromise economic viability in favor of low emissions. That's going to backfire.

    • Re: (Score:2, Redundant)

      by ghoul ( 157158 )
      We need to count emissions based on where the end product is consumed. Most of China's emissions are for making stuff consumed in the US. The Chinese themselves lead frugal lives and if the West lived the same frugal life , there would be no issue of climate change.
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      China's emissions are due to peak in the next year or two, and then fall quite rapidly. More rapidly than they fell in any Western nation. They are 5 years ahead of where they agreed to be at Paris.

      So yes, while they are building new coal plants, the context is falling emissions and those plants proving to be uneconomical or relegated to peaking only. They had some issues a few years ago with blackouts due to rapidly increasing demand in some areas, and coal was a quick and dirty solution. Now those plants

      • Yes, in the same way that coal usage peaked in 2015 and was going to be cut by 25% by 2025.
        So not going to happen they continue to add more coal plants, as well as more new LICE/HICE than EV/*ICE removal.

        Look, I’ve been optimistic for a long time that we could beat this. I have posted here for a long time that by start of 2024, western/Chinese EV sales would be at 50%. As I predicted, we would see total Vehicle sales drop, but nowhere near what I thought/hoped. Why not? Government have no incentive
        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Sales of EVs in China account for 60% of the entire world. Of new vehicles sold there, 27% are EVs. It's not enough, but it's quiet rapid progress compared to almost everyone else.

          There are good reasons to be pessimistic, but we shouldn't let that translate into inaction, or putting politics above the climate emergency. As an example, the EU has tariffs on cars made from parts made outside the EU, including EV batteries. China has the best EV batteries, and the most manufacturing capacity. Of course they wa

          • China has the best EV batteries, and the most manufacturing capacity. Of course they want to protect their own domestic industry, but if they could do it in a way that doesn't prevent the import of low cost, high quality Chinese batteries, so we can get EV prices down even further and eliminate supply chain bottlenecks, that would be really good.

            China is NOT a friend to the west....period.

            Do you really want to put your country even MORE dependent on China now....for all your transportation needs?

            We're ta

  • by sonicmerlin ( 1505111 ) on Friday February 09, 2024 @12:02AM (#64226660)

    According to the temperature chart in the article, it took us 10 years to go from 1.0C to 1.5C, whereas it took 50 years to go from 0 to 1. That means we'll be at 2C in less than a decade. We are absolutely doomed. I don't see any way we can avoid the consequences of what's about to happen. Not with conservatives trying to pillage the planet for their bank accounts.

    • Not with conservatives trying to pillage the planet for their bank accounts.

      So... what about the people who can not be labelled as Conservative who are also trying to plunder the planet? People without any particular Political ideology, just a desire to grab as much as they can?

      Is it necessary for a person to be a Conservative in order to be a bad actor?

      Honestly, with your statement, you have divided the world into two parts and every part must fall within one of the two extremes. Is this a useful way to look at the world?

  • Remember the Ozone. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Seclusion ( 411646 ) on Friday February 09, 2024 @12:37AM (#64226688)

    https://www.bbc.com/future/art... [bbc.com]
    It's a shame so many people could understand the problem with losing the Ozone but not the problem of heating the entire planet. The Ozone protects us from cancer and cataracts, what's wrong three degrees Fahrenheit?

    I'm practically at the point of "let them see what CO2 can do" because that's the only way they'll learn. If they can't see it(smog), touch it (great pacific garbage patch) or be UV burned by it, they just don't get it or are willfully choosing to look the other way.

  • What should we do to mitigate against the worst of global warming? Well, I'm listening to the scientists that show their work. They demonstrate that if we keep on this path of avoiding nuclear power that we will not lower CO2 emissions. What are some of the responses to that?

    Nuclear power is not safe.
    Global warming is not safe either. Figure out which poses the least danger and pick the least bad option. Choosing to walk away from nuclear fission for energy is walking into global warming. When compari

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by serafean ( 4896143 )

      > People keep bringing up the problem of global warming and when someone brings up a problem to me I have a habit of seeking solutions for them.

      I guess you haven't faced many wicked problems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] or predicaments.

      I agree that Nuclear is necessary, but I also think it won't help too much in the long term.
      My point against Nuclear: If, as a society, we lose the capacity to maintain the Nuclear infrastructure (reactors, cooling ponds, storage...) , what happens with Nuclear then?

  • by mkwan ( 2589113 ) on Friday February 09, 2024 @02:17AM (#64226772)
    The 2022 Hunga Tonga eruption may have caused a blip in temperatures by injecting cubic kilometres of water vapour into the stratosphere: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    Water vapour is a greenhouse gas, unlike the suphur dioxide injected by Mt Pinotubo, which cooled the planet. So it's possible the temperature will drop next year as the water precipitates out.
    • by gtall ( 79522 )

      Tonga does change the overall trajectory. Read the stats and stop choking on gnats.

  • by serafean ( 4896143 ) on Friday February 09, 2024 @03:40AM (#64226838)

    Lets see who we've got so far:

    -Honga Tonga water vapor.
    Nope, 0.035C is the estimated contribution. https://eos.org/articles/tonga... [eos.org]

    - negative feedbacks, specifically more rain -> cooler land.
    More rain yes, but most often within extreme weather events. https://www.epa.gov/climate-in... [epa.gov] . It won't cool the land, it will flood it.

    - +1.5C would be nice where I live.
    That's not how averages work. Stick your head in an oven, your feet in a fridge. Your average temperature might still be 37C, but you're definitely not going to be fine.

    - Vikings in Greenland. (that one might have been in jest)
    Greenland melting means adios coastal cities. And under glaciers, there is no topsoil, only gravel. That land will be barren, not suitable for growing/grazing anything. Not to mention sweet water changing the density in the area and affecting the AMOC.

    - Move to siberia (taken from another post,thanks)
    https://hir.harvard.edu/climat... [harvard.edu] Most current infrastructure there will be broken by the melting and shifting land.

    - Who are we to determine the "correct" temperature for the planet. (aka - it was hotter when dinosaurs were here, and the planet was fine)
    If you don't care about humanity and its civilization, which so far has only ever existed in the 10000 year stable holocene, sure...

    • "CO2 is good for plants" is almost here, so expanding:

      CO2 does promote plant growth, however, the nutrient content goes way down.
      https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
      Essentially, we'll be growing junk food, instead of having to create it.

      CO2 dissolves in the ocean, rendering it more acidic. This prevents plankton organisms from growing their calcite shells (currently making them more fragile).
      Pour vinegar on some limestone to actually see how that works.
      I'm not sure how evolution could solve this as basic chemi

    • If you don't care about humanity and its civilization, which so far has only ever existed in the 10000 year stable holocene, sure...

      Why should they care?

      First, they will be dead by the time it gets really bad.

      Second, their children will have no stake in the future as they won't own anything, it will all be rentals and subscriptions. They won't even be able to buy their own shelter.

      Third, nobody listens anyways. Since there are stupid people without money, why should we listen to people without money since the morons will flood the discussion? (the implication being is that the person deciding to listen or not MUST be smart; otherwise, t

  • Democracy is lovely of course and enables many to feel empowered. The downside is that it's hopeless for making difficult choices
  • TFA takes a small piece out of a larger graph, deliberately making it look more dramatic than it is. Visit the actual Copernicus website [copernicus.eu] and scroll down a bit to see the original graph, which forecasts 1.5C in 2033.

    What I find annoying, though, is that the data source for that graph is not specified. Is it based on ground stations? Satellites? Some combination thereof? This matters, and really should be specified as part of the chart.

  • ... pun intended, and start building nuclear plants, and figuring out more technological solutions.

    We aren't going to de-industrialize, and arguing on a worldwide computer network that we should do so is the height of silliness.

Keep up the good work! But please don't ask me to help.

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