Climate Apocalypse News and Science Updates

[Meatpie]

World’s top climate scientists expect global heating to blast past 1.5C target​

Hundreds of the world’s leading climate scientists expect global temperatures to rise to at least 2.5C (4.5F) this century, blasting past internationally agreed targets and causing catastrophic consequences for humanity and the planet, an exclusive Guardian survey has revealed.

Almost 80% of the respondents, all from the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), foresee at least 2.5C of global heating above preindustrial levels,, while almost half anticipate at least 3C (5.4F). Only 6% thought the internationally agreed 1.5C (2.7F) limit will be met.


Many of the scientists envisage a “semi-dystopian” future, with famines, conflicts and mass migration, driven by heatwaves, wildfires, floods and storms of an intensity and frequency far beyond those that have already struck.

Numerous experts said they had been left feeling hopeless, infuriated and scared by the failure of governments to act despite the clear scientific evidence provided.

“I think we are headed for major societal disruption within the next five years,” said Gretta Pecl, at the University of Tasmania. “[Authorities] will be overwhelmed by extreme event after extreme event, food production will be disrupted. I could not feel greater despair over the future.”

World’s top climate scientists expect global heating to blast past 1.5C target

Exclusive: Planet is headed for at least 2.5C of heating with disastrous results for humanity, poll of hundreds of scientists finds

www.theguardian.com

 

[Meatpie]

The Washington Post: Billions of people just felt the deadly intensity of climate-fueled heat waves​

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/06/22/deadly-heat-wave-climate-change

Dozens of bodies were discovered in Delhi during a two-day stretch this week when even sundown brought no relief from sweltering heat and humidity. Tourists died or went missing as the mercury surged in Greece. Hundreds of pilgrims perished before they could reach Islam’s holiest site, struck down by temperatures as high as 125 degrees.

The scorching heat across five continents in recent days, scientists say, provided yet more proof that human-caused global warming has so raised the baseline of normal temperatures that once-unthinkable catastrophes have become commonplace.
The suffering came despite predictions that a year-long surge of global heat might soon begin to wane. Instead, in the past seven days alone, billions felt heat with climate change-fueled intensity that broke more than 1,000 temperature records around the globe. Hundreds fell in the United States, where tens of millions of people across the Midwest and Eastern Seaboard have been sweltering amid one of the worst early-season heat waves in memory.

“It should be obvious that dangerous climate change is already upon us,” said Michael Wehner, a climate scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. “People will die because of global warming on this very day.”
That much of this week’s heat unfolded after the dissipation of the El Niño weather pattern — which typically boosts global temperatures — shows how greenhouse gas pollution has pushed the planet into frightening new territory, researchers say. Scientists had expected this summer might be somewhat cooler than 2023, which was the hottest in the Northern Hemisphere in at least 2,000 years.

But with summer 2024 just getting started, there are ominous signs that even more scorching conditions may still be on the horizon.

June is already all but sure to set a 13th-consecutive monthly global average temperature record, said Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist who works for the payments company Stripe. Next month, he added, the planet could approach or surpass the highest global averages ever measured.

Whether the unyielding trend of record heat will ease soon, with an expected transition from El Niño to its cooler counterpart, La Niña, isn’t yet clear, scientists said. Scientists are also still analyzing individual extreme weather events to determine how much climate change influenced them, if at all.
What is obvious: the way humans have caused baseline temperatures to surge.
“We’ve got the highest greenhouse gas concentrations in the last 3 million years. Carbon dioxide traps heat, so the temperature of the planet is rising,” said Michael McPhaden, a senior scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “It’s real simple physics.”

 

[Meatpie]

Summer 2024 was World's Hottest on Record​

Summer 2024 was the Earth's warmest on record, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service.

It was also the warmest across Europe at 1.54C above the 1991-2020 long term average, exceeding the previous record from 2022.

August was also the 13th month in a 14-month period where the global average temperature exceeded 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

Despite the UK having its coolest summer since 2015, much of Europe experienced a hotter than average summer.

Summer 2024 was world's hottest on record

Newly released figures show summer 2024 was the warmest on record across globe, despite cooler conditions in UK.

www.bbc.com