Planet to cross key climate change threshold, analysis says
Global temperatures are poised to surpass a key climate threshold many thought was still years away — so quickly that some climate activists and scientists say world leaders should give up on the pretense they can still prevent disastrous levels of warming.
The United Kingdom’s Met office on Thursday warned that next year’s average global temperature could breach a key planetary warming benchmark: 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels. While it would not mark a permanent crossing of that barrier — natural fluctuations could make temperatures dip back below it the following year — remaining above it over a longer period of time would induce catastrophic sea level rise and make extreme heat a threat to life for 2 billion people. This year, the planet is on its brink.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate science
What began as a theory in the 1890s — that industrial emissions of carbon dioxide could increase global temperatures — had progressed to a scientific fact a century later. Scientists across a range of disciplines are studying the impact of the still-growing concentration of carbon dioxide and other so-called “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere as they call for industrial and governmental policies to slow, then halt, the warming of the planet.