Greenhouse gas emissions are at an all-time high, with annual emissions totaling 54 billion tonnes of CO2. Since the late 1800s, humans have caused surface temperatures to rise by 1.14°C, and this warming is accelerating at an unprecedented rate of more than 0.2°C each decade. Maximum land surface temperatures (what climate scientists refer to as maximum land surface temperatures) are increasing twice as quickly. And it is these temps that will determine whether people experience record heat or whether wildfires erupt.
Because of these developments, the remaining carbon budget for 1.5°C – the amount of CO2 that global society can still release while still having a 50% chance of keeping temperature rise to 1.5°C – is now only around 250 billion tonnes. At the moment current emission levels will run out in less than six years. This is the conclusion of a recent report that I co-authored with 49 other scientists from around the world. It monitors the most recent changes in the Earth’s emissions, temperatures, and energy flows. Data that can help guide climate action. For example, by indicating how quickly emissions must be reduced to fulfill international temperature targets. The first report in a series of annual reports has recorded the rate at which the Earth is heating up.
Indicators of Global Climate Change program track human-induced warming annually
We are initiating a program called Indicators of Global Climate Change that will put all of the required pieces together for the first time to track human-induced warming year by year. Also, we monitor greenhouse gas and particulate pollution emissions, as well as their warming and cooling influences to determine their role in causing surface temperature change.
We employ rigorous approaches based on the comprehensive findings of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Governments and their climate policy negotiators rely on IPCC assessments as dependable source of information. Despite this, they are published roughly eight years apart. This creates an information gap in a rapidly changing world where policies can alter quickly: trustworthy indicators on the condition of the climate have been missing from annual UN climate negotiations.
Climate data is available for everyone to use
We gathered evidence on all greenhouse gas emissions and their changes during the epidemic in this initial report. We then utilized this evidence to calculate the temperature change caused by human activity. This indicates how close the planet is to breaching the long-term goal of holding temperatures to within 1.5°C set by the Paris Agreement, and how quickly we are approaching it. In this first study, we explained how much has changed since the IPCC’s most recent comprehensive assessment (the sixth assessment report, or AR6), which assessed data up to 2019. Temperatures are rising as are greenhouse gas emissions. Indicators of Global Climate Change, supplied by the author
To determine how much of the observed temperature variations are the result of human activity, we needed to monitor how these activities influence energy fluxes within the Earth system. Greenhouse gas emissions accumulate in the atmosphere, trapping heat, whereas polluting particles, such as sulfate aerosols created by coal combustion, tend to cool the Earth by reflecting more sunlight. Although greenhouse gases have increased significantly in recent years, pollution has decreased globally. Both of these trends contribute to global warming. We assessed that this is causing the highest-ever rate of global warming – over 0.2°C per decade.
Open data dashboard tracks rising temperatures, aiding climate policy decisions
In the coming years, we hope to involve a broader scientific community and, in particular, make it possible to track climatic extremes such as the current heatwaves, floods, and wildfires in Canada. In this first year, we will demonstrate our purpose by recording how daily maximum temperatures have risen over the land. These are rising at twice the rate of the average, and are currently 1.74°C higher than they were in the 1800s.
We hope that this data is used by the primary users of IPCC information, notably government climate negotiators, to help them grasp the magnitude of action required. And we also want a far larger audience to have access to timely and reliable climate data in a fully transparent manner, where the scientific processes are documented for the public record, so we are building an open data dashboard that anyone can access to see the data.
We want to foster trust in our process, so we share this data without pushing for specific policies. We follow the IPCC motto of “policy relevance” but not “policy prescription.” Also, we aim to let the evidence speak for itself, giving policymakers the tools they need to comprehend the pace of climate change and the solutions that are required. As we generate a succession of these reports over the future years, we may see either ongoing high rates of emissions or warming or a quick emission drop, with warming levels beginning to stabilize. Whatever happens, the world’s climate scientists will be watching and reporting.
