Guest essay by Eric Worrall
How close can scientists adjust us towards the 1.5C global warming bogeyman temperature without people noticing its just not that big a deal?
Earth may be even closer to 1.5°C of global warming than we thought
ENVIRONMENT 15 December 2020
By Adam VaughanGlobal carbon emissions may have warmed Earth by 18 per cent more than previously thought, raising the prospect of the world having less time than expected to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement and avoid catastrophic climate change.
The global average temperature is thought to have climbed about 1.07°C since the industrial revolution, up from a previous estimate of 0.91°C. This update brings all three of the world’s key temperature data sets in line, suggesting the true temperature rise is at the upper end of previous ranges.
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“Climate change hasn’t suddenly got worse. It’s just our estimate of how much warming has taken place has improved,” says Tim Osborn at the University of East Anglia, UK, who today published a paper with Met Office colleagues on the fifth update to the data, known as the Hadley Centre Climatic Research Unit Temperature (HadCRUT5).
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The CSIRO is playing even closer to the fire. According to the CSIRO, Australia is even closer to the dreaded 1.5C climate apocalypse than the world in general;
AUSTRALIAN CLIMATE TRENDS
The Bureau of Meteorology and other science agencies employ a range of atmospheric, terrestrial and marine sensors to track climatic trends.
For example, the Australian Climate Observations Reference Network – Surface Air Temperature dataset is based on a network of over 100 stations, with data for more than half starting in 1910.
The following information is taken from the 2020 State of the Climate report, produced every two years by CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology.
Australia’s climate has warmed since national records began in 1910, with most warming occurring since 1950. Australia’s mean surface air temperature has increased by more than 1.4°C since 1910. Since 1950, every decade has been warmer than it’s predecessor. Australia’s warmest year on record was 2019, and the seven years from 2013 to 2019 all rank in the nine warmest years. This long‑term warming trend means that most years are now warmer than almost any observed during the 20th century. When relatively cooler years do occur, it is because natural drivers that typically cool Australia’s climate, such as La Niña, act to partially offset the background warming trend.
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All this presents a difficult dilemma for climate scientists.
If the adjusted temperatures keep rising at their current pace, pretty soon they’ll blow through the magic death line milestones, and people will start asking what the big deal was.
But if the adjusted temperature series begin to flatten, skeptics will point and laugh, and even mainstream media personalities might start talking about a new pause.
Thankfully there are a few years to go until crunch time, so the most senior scientists of today will all be safely retired long before this aspect of the global warming scare hits the fan.
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December 17, 2020 at 12:41PM
