An inevitable warm-up for Earth [View all]

http://www.colorado.edu/today/2017/07/31/inevitable-warm-earth

An inevitable warm-up for Earth

Published: July 31, 2017

Even if humans could instantly turn off all emissions of greenhouse gases, Earth would continue to heat up about two more degrees Fahrenheit by the turn of the century, according to a sophisticated new analysis published today in the journal Nature Climate Change.

If current emission rates continue for 15 years, the research shows, odds are good that the planet will see nearly three degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 Celsius) of warming by then.

“This ‘committed warming’ is critical to understand because it can tell us and policymakers how long we have, at current emission rates, before the planet will warm to certain thresholds,” said Robert Pincus, a scientist with the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), a partnership of the University of Colorado Boulder and NOAA. “The window of opportunity on a 1.5-degree [C] target is closing.”

During United Nations meetings in Paris last year, 195 countries including the United States signed an agreement to keep global temperature rise less than 3.5 degrees F (2 C) above pre-industrial levels, and pursue efforts that would limit it further, to less than 3 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 C) by 2100.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/NCLIMATE3357