For the first time, the global mean temperature surpassed 1.5 degrees Celsius, the UN objective established to avert climatic disasters on Earth. The global temperature has broken pre-industrial levels multiple times in the past, but only in winter and spring, when the differences are more noticeable. This is the first time that the worldwide mean temperature has risen above 1.5 degrees Celsius in the summer.
Global mean temperature exceeded 1.5 degrees threshold during the first half of June
“Global mean temperature exceeded 1.5 degrees threshold during the first half of June. Monitoring how often and for how long these breaches occur is more important than ever, if we are to avoid more severe consequences of the climate crisis,” the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) tweeted on Thursday. “This threshold was first exceeded in December 2015, and then repeatedly in the northern hemisphere winters and springs of 2016 and 2020.”
The Paris Agreement, which entered into force in 2016, established long-term targets to guide countries in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and limiting global temperature rise this century to 2 degrees Celsius, with a goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius. However, the Paris Agreement only mentions long-term warming, that is, global temperatures over a period of 20 to 30 years on average. It makes no mention of daily or even annual global temperatures.
With El Nio occurring on a regular basis, the agency says there is considerable reason to predict periods in the next 12 months in which the global-mean air temperature exceeds pre-industrial levels by more than 1.50 degrees Celsius. According to the WMO assessment, there is a 98% chance that at least one of the next five years, and the five-year period as a whole, will be the warmest on record. It also stated that there is a 32% risk that the five-year mean will exceed the 1.5°C threshold specified in the Paris Agreement.
