New Delhi:
Global warming has accelerated over the past ten years, a new study has concluded with 98% certainty, the first time scientists have confirmed this rapid acceleration with statistical confidence.
After accounting for known natural influences such as El Niño, volcanic eruptions and solar variations in global temperatures, the research team discovered a statistically significant acceleration in the warming trend. Over the past 10 years, the estimated rate of warming has been about 0.35 degrees Celsius per decade, depending on the data set, compared with an average of just under 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade from 1970 to 2015, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) said on Friday.
This latest rate is higher than in any previous decade since the beginning of automated recordings in 1880, the authors reported.
HT reported on January 15 that global temperatures over the past three years (2023-2025) have averaged more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the first three-year period to exceed the threshold, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).
Berkeley Earth, which focuses on analyzing global temperature data, warned that temperature increases from 2023 to 2025 appear to have deviated significantly from the previously largely linear trend. If we assume that global warming continues at the same rate as it did during the 50-year period from 1970 to 2019, the journey from 2023 to 2025 would be the largest deviation from that trend, Berkeley Earth said.
“We can now demonstrate a strong and statistically significant acceleration of global warming since around 2015,” said Grant Foster, a US statistician and co-author of the study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
The study concluded that if the rate of warming continues over the past 10 years, the Paris Agreement’s warming limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius will be violated by 2030.
“Stopping this trend is in our hands: studies suggest that global warming will stop by the time humanity reaches zero carbon dioxide emissions, but it is difficult to reverse. However, in the current political climate, it is very likely that warming will continue at its rapid pace or even accelerate further. This much is clear: if the rate of warming continues in the past 10 years, the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C warming limit will be violated by 2030,” the study stated.
Natural short-term fluctuations in global temperatures caused by El Niño, volcanic eruptions, and solar cycles can mask changes in the rate of long-term global warming. In analyzing the data, the researchers worked with five global temperature datasets (NASA, NOAA, HadCRUT, Berkeley Earth, and ERA5) based on measurement data.
“The revised data show an acceleration in global warming since 2015 with a statistical certainty of more than 98%, which is consistent with all datasets examined and independent of the chosen analysis method,” said Stefan Rahmstorf, a researcher at the PIK Institute and lead author of the study.
The study comes at a time of great turmoil in climate action. In a report last January, HT reported that the United States had withdrawn from 66 international organizations and agreements, and its most significant departure from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change would likely deal a devastating blow to global efforts to address the climate crisis. Moreover, on February 12, the US Environmental Protection Agency rescinded its 2009 “Hazard Findings” on greenhouse gases, which concluded that a group of greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health. Experts have noted that the Iranian conflict is also a distraction from urgent efforts to reduce emissions.
“Beyond its brutal human costs, this latest disruption shows once again that dependence on fossil fuels leaves economies, companies, markets and people at the mercy of every new conflict or trade policy,” Simon Steele, UN climate change executive secretary, said last week. “But there is a clear solution to this mess in fossil fuel costs – renewables are now cheaper, safer and faster to market, making them the clear path to energy security and sovereignty.”
“How quickly global warming continues ultimately depends on how quickly global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels can be reduced to zero,” Rahmstorf said in a statement.
