In June, more than 60 climate scientists warned that the remaining “carbon budget” to stay below a dire warming threshold will be exhausted in as little as three years at the current rate of emissions.
But if we pass that critical 1.5-degree-Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warming threshold, is a climate catastrophe inevitable? And can we do anything to reverse that temperature rise?
Although crossing the 1.5 C threshold will lead to problems, particularly for island nations, and raise the risk of ecosystems permanently transforming, the planet won’t nosedive into an apocalypse. And once we rein in emissions, there are ways to slowly bring temperatures down if we wind up crossing that 1.5 C threshold, experts told Live Science.
Still, that doesn’t mean we should stop trying to curb emissions now, which is cheaper, easier and more effective than reversing a temperature rise that has already happened, Michael Mann, a leading climate scientist and director of the Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media at the University of Pennsylvania, told Live Science in an email.
“Every fraction of a degree of warming that we prevent makes us better off,” Mann said.
Delayed response
A report released June 19 found that the world has only 143 billion tons (130 billion metric tons) of carbon dioxide (CO2) left to emit before we likely cross the 1.5 C target set in the Paris Agreement, which was signed by 195 countries to tackle climate change. We currently emit around 46 billion tons (42 billion metric tons) of CO2 per year, according to the World Meteorological Organization.
The world is currently 1.2 C (2.2 F) warmer than the preindustrial average, with almost all of this increase in temperature due to human activities, according to the report. But our emissions may have had an even bigger warming impact that has so far been masked, because the ocean has soaked up a lot of excess heat.
The ocean will release this extra heat over the next few decades via evaporation and direct heat transfer regardless of whether we curb emissions, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
This means that even if carbon emissions dropped to zero today, global temperatures would continue to rise for a few decades, with experts predicting an extra 0.5 C (0.9 F) of warming from oceans alone.
However, temperatures would eventually stabilize as heat radiated out to…
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