Main points
- The study found that since 2015, the average rate of global temperature increase has been about 0.35°C per decade, double the rate from 1970 to 2015.
- If current warming rates continue, the planet's average temperature could exceed the 1.5°C limit by 2030, leading to more frequent climate extremes.
Global warming has accelerated / Collage by Channel 24 / Photo by Unsplash
The rate of global warming on Earth has accelerated markedly over the past decade. A new study by climate scientists shows that since about 2015, temperatures have been rising faster than in previous decades, and statistical analysis has clearly confirmed this acceleration for the first time.
A team of researchers from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) has concluded that the rate of global warming has increased significantly in recent years, NewScience reports.
Why are scientists talking about a new acceleration of warming?
Researchers estimate that over the past decade, the average rate of global temperature increase has been about 0.35°C per decade. In comparison, between 1970 and 2015, temperatures rose much more slowly, at just under 0.2°C per decade.
This means that the current rate of warming has become the highest in the entire history of instrumental observations, which have been conducted since 1880. This is described in more detail in a scientific paper published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Co-author of the study, statistician Grant Foster from the US, explains that the researchers used methods to clean the data from natural temperature fluctuations.
He said the analysis allowed him to filter out natural factors that temporarily affect the climate and create so-called “noise” in the data, helping to more accurately see the long-term warming trend.
Such natural factors include:
- the El Niño climate phenomenon,
- volcanic eruptions,
- solar activity cycles.
It is these phenomena that can temporarily raise or lower the average temperature of the planet, masking real long-term changes.
In their analysis, the scientists used five large global temperature datasets – NASA, NOAA, HadCRUT, Berkeley Earth and ERA5.
According to the lead author of the study, Stefan Ramstorf, after correcting the data, it became clear that the acceleration of warming after 2015 has a statistical reliability of more than 98% . Moreover, this result is the same in all datasets used and does not depend on the chosen analysis method.
It all started even earlier.
Interestingly, signs of acceleration began to appear as early as 2013–2014. To test this effect, scientists used two different statistical approaches:
- quadratic trend analysis,
- a model with a division into time periods, which allows you to determine the moment of change in the rate of warming.
The researchers specifically looked at 2023 and 2024, which were the warmest years on record. After taking into account the effects of El Niño and peak solar activity, these years look slightly less anomalous, but they still remain record-warm, explains Phys.org.
Important! The paper itself does not investigate the causes of accelerated warming. The authors note that climate models have long predicted the possibility of such a scenario.
What will happen next?
If the warming rates recorded over the past decade continue, the average temperature on the planet could steadily exceed the 1.5°C limit set by the Paris Climate Agreement by 2030.
Exceeding the 1.5°C threshold for global warming means that the Earth’s climate is moving into a more unstable regime. According to IPCC climate scientists, in such a world, extreme heat waves will become more frequent, droughts and floods will intensify, glaciers will melt faster and sea levels will rise. It will also increase the risks to food security, access to water and human health, and some ecosystems – such as coral reefs – could suffer massive destruction. Even extra fractions of a degree matter: as the planet warms, climate extremes will become more severe and frequent.
According to Rahmstorf, the further rate of global warming depends on how quickly humanity can reduce global CO2 emissions and abandon the use of fossil fuels.