As the world moves toward human-defined limits of warming, climate protests are becoming increasingly common. Photo credit: Alain Pitton/NurPhoto via Getty
The Earth is rapidly heading towards an increase in average temperature. One climate model shows there is a 55% chance that Earth's temperature will be 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels in 2023.
1.5°C is the maximum temperature limit set by the United Nations in the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement. However, some research groups predict that the earth's temperature will reach 1.5°C this year. In May, the World Meteorological Organization released a report stating that between 2023 and 2027, there is a 66% chance that the annual average temperature will exceed the 1.5°C temperature rise limit.
In its monthly update in August, Berkeley Earth, a Swiss non-profit climate monitoring organization, put the chance of average temperatures rising by 1.5°C in 2023 at 55%. That's higher than the less than 1% chance the team predicted at the beginning of the year, and the 20% chance it estimated based on July data.
"This year has been extraordinary," said Robert Rohde, chief scientist at Berkeley Earth. "I was surprised that August was so hot."
Joeri Rogelj, a climate science and policy researcher at Imperial College London, warned that the figures did not mean the planet was warming faster than expected. "There is absolutely no sign that the underlying warming trend has accelerated significantly, which in itself is very concerning."
Rohde expects the weather to cool down slightly after a sweltering July. However, factors including intensified El Niño events have contributed to rising temperatures. "Now we could be on track for 1.5°C warming in 2023, which is really alarming," Rohde said.
Rohde attributed some of the unusually high temperatures to phenomena not directly linked to human activity. "One of the very important issues is that there is an unusually small amount of dust in the Sahara early in the season," he said, which makes the Atlantic Ocean warmer than usual.
"This is actually related to the development of the El Niño phenomenon, which is not easy to predict." Rogelj said.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is also closely tracking changes in Earth's temperature. NOAA climate scientist Russell Vose said there is more than a 90% chance that 2023 will be the hottest year since 1850.
Rohde pays close attention to other organizations making similar predictions, including NOAA and NASA. "Based on what's being tracked, our analysis is not very different from the results of other groups, so it's likely that by the end of the year, the Earth will be warming by about 1.5°C."
Rohde's colleague Zeke Hausfater analyzed the differences between four major groups tracking global temperatures. Each group used slightly different averages of Earth's historical temperatures. Based on the NOAA data set, they estimate the temperature rise will exceed 2°C. According to NASA's GISTEMP data set, this number is 1.9°C; according to the ERA5 data set, this number is 1.8°C.
“The exact number of temperature rises is less important than setting another record for the highest annual temperature on record.” Rogelj said Berkeley Earth’s dataset shows estimates of global average temperatures for this year, which the Paris Agreement will The year 2021 is defined as the middle of a 20-year period during which global average temperatures were 1.5°C higher than the average between 1850 and 1900. "These data do not mean that we have exceeded the 1.5°C safety limit in the Paris Agreement, as this will apply in the long term," Rogelj said.
