The planet is on track to heat up at a much faster rate than scientists have previously predicted, meaning a key global warming threshold could be breached this decade, according to a new study co-authored by James Hansen \u2014 the US scientist widely credited with being the first to publicly sound the alarm on the climate crisis in the 1980s. <\/p>\n
In the paper, published Thursday in the journal Oxford Open Climate Change, Hansen and more than a dozen other scientists used a combination of paleoclimate data, including data from polar ice cores and tree rings, climate models and observational data, to conclude that the Earth is much more sensitive to climate change than previously understood. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are in the early phase of a climate emergency,\u201d according to the report, which warns a surge of heat \u201calready in the pipeline\u201d will rapidly push global temperatures beyond what has been predicted, resulting in warming that exceeds 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels in the 2020s, and above 2 degrees Celsius before 2050. <\/p>\n
The findings add to a slew of recent research that concludes the world is hurtling toward 1.5 degrees, a threshold beyond which the impacts of climate change \u2014 including extreme heat, drought and floods \u2014 will become significantly harder for humans to adapt to. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe 1.5-degree limit is deader than a doornail,\u201d said Hansen on a call with reporters. \u201cAnd the 2-degree limit can be rescued, only with the help of purposeful actions.\u201d <\/p>\n
Some other scientists, however, have cast doubt on the paper\u2019s conclusions that climate change is accelerating faster than models predict. <\/p>\n
Hansen, a director at the Earth Institute at Columbia University, is a renowned climate scientist whose 1988 testimony to the US Senate first brought global attention to climate change. <\/p>\n
He has previously warned that the Earth has an energy imbalance, as more energy comes in through sunlight than leaves through heat radiating into space. <\/p>\n
The resulting excess heat is equivalent to 400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs a day, with most of the energy absorbed by the ocean, Hansen\u2019s research found a decade ago. <\/p>\n
In this recent paper, Hansen and his co-authors say the energy imbalance has now increased, in part because of successful efforts to tackle <\/strong>particle air pollution, especially in China and through global restrictions on shipping pollution. While this kind of pollution is a serious health hazard, it also has a cooling effect, as particles reflect sunlight away from the Earth. <\/p>\n The imbalance is set to cause accelerated global warming, bringing disastrous consequences, according to the paper, including rapid sea level rise and the potential shutdown of vital ocean currents within this century. <\/p>\n Hansen said he is particularly concerned about the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet and especially the Thwaites Glacier, which acts as a cork, holding back the ice on land and providing an important defense against catastrophic sea level rise. <\/p>\n But the warming is not necessarily locked in, according to the paper, which calls for \u201cextraordinary actions.\u201d <\/p>\n Measures it recommends include\u00a0taxing carbon pollution, increasing nuclear power to \u201ccomplement renewable energies\u201d and strong action from developed countries to help developing countries move to low carbon energy. While the highest priority is to drastically reduce planet-heating\u00a0pollution, this alone will not be enough, the report found. <\/p>\n \u201cIf we\u2019re going to keep sea level close to where it is, we actually have to cool the planet,\u201d said Hansen. <\/p>\n One way to do this, the report suggests, is solar geoengineering. This controversial technology aims to cool temperatures by reflecting sunlight away from the Earth, or allowing more heat to escape into space. That can be done through injecting aerosols into the atmosphere or spraying clouds with salt particles to make them more reflective, for example. <\/p>\n Critics warn of unforeseen consequences, including impacts on rainfall and monsoons, as well as \u201ctermination shock\u201d if geoengineering were suddenly halted and pent-up warming released. <\/p>\n But Hansen said it should be considered. \u201cRather than describe those efforts as \u2018threatening geoengineering,\u2019 we have to recognize that we are geoengineering the planet right now,\u201d he said, by burning large amounts of planet-heating fossil fuels. <\/p>\n The paper\u2019s findings are alarming and come as the world is experiencing unprecedented heat. This year is on course to be the hottest on record, with every month from June onwards breaking records for the hottest such month. <\/p>\n But while science is clear that the rate of global warming is increasing, the idea that it is accelerating beyond what models predict is controversial. <\/p>\n The findings \u201care very much out of the mainstream,\u201d said Michael Mann, a leading climate scientist at the University of Pennsylvania. <\/p>\n He also cast doubt on the role of pollution reduction in warming trends, saying the total impact is very small, and warned that solar geoengineering is \u201cunprecedented\u201d and \u201cpotentially very dangerous.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cWhether or not the 1.5 degrees Celsius target is reachable is a matter of policy, not climate physics, at this point,\u201d Mann said. <\/p>\n But Hansen rejected criticisms of the research, saying it\u2019s based on hard numbers and straightforward physics. <\/p>\n \u201cThis is not fringe, this is the correct physics and it is the real world,\u201d he said, \u201cand it sometimes takes the community a while to catch on.\u201d <\/p>\n\n The planet is on track to heat up at a much faster rate than scientists have previously predicted, meaning a key global warming threshold could be breached this decade, according to a new study co-authored by James Hansen \u2014 the US scientist widely credited with being the first to publicly sound the alarm on the <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":11094,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11093","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}