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Global Warming Could Exceed 1.5C Within Five Years, Report Says (theguardian.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the trouble-trends dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Global warming could temporarily hit 1.5C above pre-industrial levels for the first time between now and 2023, according to a long-term forecast by the Met Office. Meteorologists said there was a 10% chance of a year in which the average temperature rise exceeds 1.5C, which is the lowest of the two Paris agreement targets set for the end of the century. Until now, the hottest year on record was 2016, when the planet warmed 1.11C above pre-industrial levels, but the long-term trend is upward. In the five-year forecast released on Wednesday, the Met Office highlights the first possibility of a natural El Niño combining with global warming to exceed the 1.5C mark. Climatologists stressed this did not mean the world had broken the Paris agreement 80 years ahead of schedule because international temperature targets are based on 30-year averages. Although it would be an outlier, scientists said the first appearance in their long-term forecasts of such a "temporary excursion" was worrying, particularly for regions that are usually hard hit by extreme weather related to El Nino. This includes western Australia, South America, south and west Africa, and the Indian monsoon belt.

16 of 319 comments (clear)

  1. What if... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If it doesn't hit 1.5C in 5 years, can I criticize the prediction. Well no. They did day "maybe." No matter what happens, they get to claim victory. Nothing presented is falsifiable. No matter what you think of global warming, that ain't science.

    1. Re: What if... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      You should Google âoestatisticsâ. Itâ(TM)s this science that helps understand probabilities, and the way trends can be reflected by a change in the distributions of outcomes. Really helps to understand topics like this.

    2. Re:What if... by alvinrod · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The real test of any indication of confidence is an actual wager. If they're 10% certain, they should be willing to take bets that offer 9:1 odds or better. Similarly, you should be willing to make that same wager on the other side since you're at least 90% certain that they are wrong. If either of you won't make that wager, then you're not actually as confident as you claim.

      It's the old saying, "Put your money where your mouth is."

    3. Re:What if... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Climate deniers

      Except almost nobody denies that the climate changes and is changing. They deny that polar bears are literally in the tropics now and that changing to CFL bulbs will SAVE US ALL from Al Gore's oceanfront property being washed away two decades ago.

    4. Re: What if... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      I deny AGW because there is zero evidence.

      I do not deny there is a climate.

      I do not deny the climate changes.

      Your ad hominem straw man is fail.

      But I am sure that passes for intelligent discourse in your Marxist echo chamber at school in your polisci class taught by an unreformed old school Marxist who never had to work a real job for a single day in his life.

    5. Re: What if... by reanjr · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Anyone buying waterfront property is betting against most common models of climate change.

    6. Re:What if... by q_e_t · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What the hell brand of CFL ae you using that fail so quickly? I have literally had one a CFL fail and I was 100% CFL for a decade. Anyway, why would you buy CFLs now as opposed to LEDs? I now have 75% LEDs apart from a couple of small lamps that are rarely on (halogen), on a dimmer circuit that isn't the right type for dimmable LEDs (using halogens) and in the sheds which are using three of the same CFLs I used to have in the house. I have a stock of old CFLs should I ever need to replace one.

    7. Re: What if... by vyvepe · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Statistics is not a science. It is not even math.

      Statistics definitely is a branch of math. You are ridiculous. You made me respond even when I do not care much about climate change. But both sides sometimes can spit such a bullshit when talking about it. One side ignores models completely because they are sometimes wrong. The other side misleads about how expensive renewables are.

    8. Re: What if... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Global warming predicts everything. Lower lows, higher highs, higher lows, lower highs and abnormally normal normals.

    9. Re:What if... by vague+disclaimer · · Score: 2, Insightful

      In *your part* of Canada. They are moving, because their habitat is being destroyed. By climate change.

    10. Re:What if... by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 3, Insightful

      He talks about a "hots summer" that melts perma frost in siberia in a 10km or 100km wide stripe.

      And yes, that could have a catastrophic effect.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    11. Re:What if... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You could have at least read as far as the second sentence in the summary. They said there is a 10% chance of one year being over the 1.5C line.

      And if you dig only slightly further, you can see that their model provides probabilities for a number of scenarios. That's how climate modelling works, and why denier claims that "all models are wrong" are simply nonsense.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  2. Re:In before the dishonest Republican incel denial by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Here's why people have stopped caring about "global warming"/"climate change" : https://www.apnews.com/bd45c372caf118ec99964ea547880cd0

    Check the dates.

  3. Re:In before the dishonest Republican incel denial by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    According to the UN it can all be fixed by sending hundreds of millions to poorer countries.

  4. Re:No AI winter for meteorologists by hey! · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Actually, the temperature swings *are exactly* what the models were predicting even some twenty years ago: not just uniformly warmer *weather* but extreme local weather events.

    If you look at maps of *global* temperature anomaly you can see why. Globally most places are warmer, but the greater energy in the atmosphere is causing warm air to intrude northward. Since air (or ocean for that matter) mixes *very* slowly on a global scale, that means the cold Arctic air doesn't just disappear, it gets displaced southward.

    Sitting on one spot on the planet, you get *extreme* swings of temperature. I plotted the temperature swing at my house; it went down thirty five degrees C in *five hours*. Then after a couple days it rocketed up forty degrees overnight. Over in Chicago they had a *seventy degree* temperature swing over four days. If you're just thinking about your *local* weather, it seems mysterious. If you look at what's happening *globally* it's quite simple and straightforward.

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    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  5. It's a range the Green New Deal can fix by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's fairly simple to cut your individual emissions to about 1/10th of what they were. I personally cut mine to 1/20th, by some fairly simple measures. And, bizarrely, almost all of the actions taken SAVED ME MONEY.

    Things like buying some solar panels in bulk (my house was built in 2000, so it can support solar panels and the electrical has to be able to deal with it. Replacing an old gas furnace with a more efficient two-phase one (the old one only had instant on full blast fans), replacing lightbulbs everywhere (dramatic drop from that, my new LEDs even include external floods that are way brighter than the old incandescent ones, but use 1/6th the energy, trick is to buy them in bulk when they have sales and replace from the ones left on the most to the ones used the least), new fridge/stove/washer/dryer (pro tip: buy the most efficient one, even if you don't get a discount from your utility, surprised how much that saved.

    We can rapidly remove all tax exemptions, deductions, and exclusions for all fossil fuel infrastructure. It's about 90 percent of the DOE budget. And create jobs - solar and wind combine very well for a good power curve, and they create a lot of local jobs and income stream for farmers and ranchers. Just covering irrigation canals with solar panels reduces evaporation and reduces salt impact on your crops.

    We fought both the Nazis and Japan in WW II. We can easily do this.

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