'Red alert': last year was hottest on record by clear margin, says UN report

[riversedge]

Source: the guardian






Records being broken for greenhouse gas pollution, surface temperatures and ocean heat

Ajit Niranjan Last modified on Tue 19 Mar 2024 09.55 EDT


The world has never been closer to breaching the 1.5C (2.7F) global heating limit, even if only temporarily, the United Nations’ weather agency has warned.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirmed on Tuesday that 2023 was the hottest year on record by a clear margin. In a report on the climate, it found that records were “once again broken, and in some cases smashed” for key indicators such as greenhouse gas pollution, surface temperatures, ocean heat and acidification, sea level rise, Antarctic sea ice cover and glacier retreat.

Andrea Celeste Saulo, secretary general of the WMO, said the organisation was now “sounding the red alert to the world”.

The report found temperatures near the surface of the earth were 1.45C higher last year than they were in the late 1800s, when people began to destroy nature at an industrial scale and burn large amounts of coal, oil and gas.

The error margin of 0.12C in the temperature estimate is large enough that the earth may have already heated 1.5C. But this would not mean world leaders have broken the promise they made in Paris in 2015 to halt global heating to that level by the end of the century, scientists warn, because they measure global heating using a 30-year average rather than counting a spike in a single year.

The report documented violent weather extremes – particularly heat – on every inhabited continent. Some of the weather events were made stronger or more likely by climate change, rapid attribution studies have shown................................................

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/19/red-alert-last-year-was-hottest-year-ever-by-wide-margin-says-un-report?CMP=share_btn_url

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Here in mid Wisconsin I have not been able to cross country ski last winter.

I few inches of know once or twice but not enough for the trails.

[Evolve Dammit]

1. Like the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, Gaza or traitors here. Millions simply don't fucking care. At all. nt

[2naSalit]

2. Remember that...

10 year window identified a few years ago? Well. we might have two, maybe three years left of that window and we've not only done nothing to improve the situation, we've gone in the other direction.

Not only are there more cars on the road and increased manufacturing, the recently started wars in the last couple-few years have each knocked years off our opportunity to save ourselves.


We're NOT saving the planet, we're trying to save ourselves from extinction and we're failing miserably.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

3. Don't say "we" have done nothing.

The Biden administration is doing everything it can to combat climate change. There is a big difference.

[2naSalit]

4. Our species...

Collectively have not. Our country can clean up its act entirely and it won't be enough at this point.

Our industries are still fighting tooth and nail and still importing their finished products, made in countries where pollution isn't addressed, and people here buy them so we are still part of it even if we make our continent one big national park.

Plastic recycling is a joke and all the efforts toward it are bunk.

So we are part of the we, like it or not. Sorry.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

6. I put much of out faults down to the lesser of two evils.

When Putin, the Saudis and other dictatorships opt to drill baby drill, our economy is still dependent on fossil fuels. Keeping our economy humming is one way we re-elect the "defeat climate change" administration.

The USA, like it or not, is a Capitalist nation. We are a nation of laws. Or at least we were.

[2naSalit]

7. Yup...

I agree with you on the voting to have positive change, it just won't be enough. Capitalism got us here. There is no positive correlation between capitalism and the well being of life forms on the planet.

[NickB79]

8. The US is now the top oil producer in the world

We've beaten the Saudis, at 13 million barrels per day.

The US went full "drill baby drill" in the last few years.

[LudwigPastorius]

5. 'Red alert': last year was hottest on record by clear margin,"

Well yeah, until this year.