From UN report warns world nearing warming limit as globe sizzles
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleA new United Nations report warns that the world is getting closer to passing a temperature limit set by global leaders five years ago and may exceed it in the next decade or so.
In the next five years, the world has nearly a 1-in-4 chance of experiencing a year that’s hot enough to put the global temperature at 2.7 degrees (1.5 degrees Celsius) above pre-industrial times, according to a new science update released today by the UN, World Meteorological Organization and other global science groups.
That 1.5 degrees Celsius is the more stringent of two limits set in 2015 by world leaders in the Paris climate change agreement. A 2018 UN science report said a world hotter than that still survives, but chances of dangerous problems increase tremendously.
The report comes on the heels of a weekend of weather gone wild: Scorching heat, record California wildfires and two more Atlantic storms that set records for earliest 16th and 17th named storms.
In Israel, Jerusalem has seen an unprecedented heat wave. It twice smashed records this month for the highest temperature ever recorded there, hitting 108.8º F (42.7º C) on Friday. Eight of the top 30 high temperatures ever recorded in the city have come in the last 10 days.
Earlier this year, Death Valley hit 130º F (54.4º Celsius) and Siberia hit 100º F (38º C).
The warming that has already occurred has “increased the odds of extreme events that are unprecedented in our historical experience,” Stanford University climate scientist Noah Diffenbaugh says.
— with AP
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