Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Earth

Global Temperatures Likely To Exceed Key Limit For First Time 47

With October's initial temperature data in, 2024 will rank as the first calendar year in modern record-keeping in which global average surface temperatures exceed the Paris Agreement's aspirational 1.5C guardrail. From a report:Holding long-term warming to the 1.5-degree target compared to the preindustrial era is crucial for lowering the risk of triggering climate change tipping points, beyond which potentially catastrophic impacts have a higher likelihood of occurring, studies show. Holding warming to that target is viewed as necessary for small island states and other extremely vulnerable nations to avoid being wiped out by sea level rise, drought and other threats.

The data -- and proxy records such as tree rings and ice cores -- shows this year is likely to be the hottest in at least 125,000 years. Right now, the world is on track for as much as 3.1C (5.58F) of warming based on already pledged emissions cuts, assuming they are fulfilled. Copernicus Climate Change Service reported early Thursday that the year is headed for a temperature anomaly of more than 1.55C (2.79F) above preindustrial levels. Last year fell just shy of the 1.5C threshold relative to the 1850-1900 average.

Global Temperatures Likely To Exceed Key Limit For First Time

Comments Filter:
  • by OrangAsm ( 678078 ) on Thursday November 07, 2024 @03:14PM (#64928643)

    We've decided "the economy", SUVs, and hamburgers are more important. We've elected leaders that will end all this pesky economy-killing climate regulation. It's not human caused anyway!

    • Well the good news is, the US has committed to killing its economy. With American's unable to buy any goods once the 20% to 100% tariffs are applied, and the hyper inflation takes off (tax cuts, lower interest rates, tariffs, and added money printing to fund SS and Medicare), it will end this pesky economy, SUV's and hamburgers.
      • by AvitarX ( 172628 )

        Do you know what hyper inflation is?

        Because it seems incredibly unlikely too happen.

      • by paiute ( 550198 )

        fund SS and Medicare.

        Optimist.

      • Don't forget the mass deportations. There are jobs American companies won't pay enough for American workers to do, and Americans don't make enough babies to keep the economy going on their own. Anything undesirable that can't be automated immediately will get very expensive or no longer get made/done.

        It's crazy.

    • by Tailhook ( 98486 )

      "the economy"

      Yeah. Keep behaving like its nothing.

      The people have figured it out. But feel free to keep marginalizing yourself: you're transparent.

      You have meaningful options. You can embrace growth and prosperity and our technological capabilities, such as nuclear power, and actually solve problems you claim to care so much about. That would involve foregoing your deeply held desire to inflict energy poverty, and all the other poverty that you know comes with it. I know that's really tough, but you do have tha

      • Yeah a CCC style effort to build lots of renewable energy and nuclear power would be the sort of jobs program that could reach out and help small towns and blue collar workers. There seems to be a lot of anxiety about EVs because they'll require less machinists and oil extraction but those people can be maintaining wind farms or drilling geothermal power and so on. Making it easier to get college loans doesn't seem to have helped as much as everyone thought.
        • by Tailhook ( 98486 )

          Making it easier to get college loans doesn't seem to have helped as much as everyone thought.

          Flooding postsecondary education with a horde of government financed midwits hasn't just not helped. It's been an enormous detriment. It has compromised academic standards, turned colleges and universities into overpriced diploma mills and devalued academic credentials. Not to mention saddling the young with debt.

      • by skam240 ( 789197 )

        So is the trade war Trump wants to start with the entire world part of embracing "growth and prosperity"?

        • by Tailhook ( 98486 )

          So is the trade war Trump wants to start with the entire world part of embracing "growth and prosperity"?

          I don't know precisely what the impact of increasing our aggression in the on-going trade war will be. I know you don't either.

          What do know is this: the overlap in the Venn diagram of people bleating about the economic destruction that tariffs will supposedly bring and the people who cannot fathom how ever higher taxes will produce the same outcome is 100%.

    • We've decided "the economy", SUVs, and hamburgers are more important.

      Don't forget the trade war we essentially just voted to authorize! Across the board tariff increases (a core part of Trump's platform) against every other country in the world is a guaranteed start to one. What a win for America, more global warming and a recession on the horizon!

      The silver lining to if Trump pulls off this recession in waiting is we'll get to watch the dedicated Trumpers make up fantasies about how it's not his fault. Sadly, having seen how things go though, the blame will never stick to h

  • by Anonymous Coward

    More batteries, more solar panels, more immigrants.

  • 1.5 C is merely a number that was picked because it is a nice round number for the Paris accords. There is no particular tipping point that we believe will happen at 1.5C. It is worse than, say, 1.3C, but not as bad as, say 2C.

    Stop focussing on the number. The problem is not exceeding any one particular number, it is that the number will keep rising indefinitely as long as we keep increasing the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

    • by kurkosdr ( 2378710 ) on Thursday November 07, 2024 @03:51PM (#64928737)

      The problem is not exceeding any one particular number, it is that the number will keep rising indefinitely as long as we keep increasing the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

      Good ol' tragedy of the commons. A country increasing its CO2 output is beneficial for them (financially) but detrimental to everyone else long-term. Similarly, a country decreasing its CO2 output is detrimental for them (financially) but beneficial to everyone else long-term.

      Historically, humans have solved the tragedy of the commons problem by either fencing areas off or by enacting local regulations (enforced by the local monopoly of force). But when it comes to the climate, you can't fence off the atmosphere and you can't enforce regulations using force on a global scale (because there is no Earth Police). Personally, I think humans aren't suitably equipped from an evolutionary standpoint to tackle a problem like climate change, the planetary-scale cooperation and mutual understanding mechanisms required for that simply don't exist in our species. We are screwed.

    • by laughingskeptic ( 1004414 ) on Thursday November 07, 2024 @04:09PM (#64928795)
      There was a little more to it than it being a "nice round number ": https://news.mit.edu/2023/expl... [mit.edu] . In comparing the destructiveness of two "nice round numbers" +1.5 versus +2.0, the models indicate that the latter is much much worse for many more areas of the planet ... so the decision was to target +1.5.

      We are going to hit +2.0 in about 25 years, so I guess we will get to see first hand just how destructive this will be.
      • 25 years, you are really optimistic. I reckon 5-10 years.

      • by rossdee ( 243626 )

        "We are going to hit +2.0 in about 25 years,"

        With the (R)s doing a clean sweep (Prez, Senate, and House) I am sure we can hit that by the end of the decade (that's Dec 31, 2030)

        Don't forget that other countries are also going to be increasing their emissions.

        Of course a worldwide depression could prevent that, which Trump might be able to achieve.

        One thing though is that the swing states (MI, PA and WI) are less likely to be as badly affected by climate change than the coastal southern states that always v

  • Or I would be worried! lol
  • by laughingskeptic ( 1004414 ) on Thursday November 07, 2024 @03:49PM (#64928735)
    There are pledges to reduce emissions and then the reality that every year, despite these pledges, greenhouse gas concentrations continue to rise. Caveating +3.1C with "based on already pledged emissions cuts" is ignoring the evidence. Scientists need to stop ignoring the evidence that humans are failing to moderate their behavior.

    We are at +1.5C now and heading for at least +3.5C -- which is the equilibrium temperature for our current greenhouse gas concentration, but every year we increase, not decrease the greenhouse gas levels. As is clearly shown in this paper, temperature is a lagging indicator: https://www.ces.fau.edu/nasa/i... [fau.edu] The entire mass of the atmosphere is 1/5 the mass of the ice in Antarctica. There are a lot of heat sinks holding the temperature back from its ultimate equilibrium point, but the planet will get there eventually.

    And it looks like we have likely warmed the planet enough to initiate ever increasing microbial methane production which in ~70 years will become the primary driver of global warming. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.... [wiley.com] .

According to the latest official figures, 43% of all statistics are totally worthless.

Working...