Here's my visual explanation of why we have not yet reached 1.5°C even though 2024 was likely warmer than 1.5°C. 2024 shows us how close we are, but the underlying warming is still under 1.5°C.
Comments
Log in with your Bluesky account to leave a comment
https://bsky.app/profile/rarohde.bsky.social/post/3lfeu6boi6c2n
HadCRUT does seem to show the least amount of accelerating curve upwards out of the datasets. Berkeley Earth will likey cross 1.5C three years before HadCRUT and six years before GISS/NOAA (assuming they continue to function)
Important to note that by "underlying warming" you mean a rolling average of, I believe, 30 years. While use of a rolling average helps avoid over-interpreting natural variability, it can also under-estimate actual warming.
Your conclusion presumes that the trend is linear. Natural systems typically behave logarithmically, e.g., increase temperature by 10 Degrees Celsius and you double the rate of chemical reactions. Climate is changing faster than even the most pessimistic models. Take another look.
The longer term averages are very convenient for the fossil fuel industry as they can point to the lower figure to make out the warming is not so critical...
Roling average - that is exactly the nonsense, so many experts and scientists are hiding behind today so that they can avoid to admit, that 1.5 is long long gone.
I mean come on, its not as if we will stop emissions next week.
In this animation I just extrapolated the recent observed trend, with either a little acceleration or a little deceleration to give a range of outcomes. It's intended to illustrate the concept rather than make a detailed projection, which would indeed need to use some (sub)set of models
The weakness of such an approach is that it ignores the potentially extreme impacts of entering major tipping point ranges that could heavily impact temperatures in the very near term.
I totally do not understand this theory of looking 10 yrs. back!
If someone told me I am 62 yrs. old, because that is the average over the last 10 years, I would declare it misunderstanding of statistics.
Isn't it much better to say that we don't know the 10 years average temperature of 2024 yet?
Your age increases steadily, while global T increases more irregularly (natural variability). Taking a time average helps reduce the latter, but it is a lagging indicator as you say. We could say, let's wait 10 years, but people want to know where we are now not where we were 10 years ago
other options are to estimate some of the natural variability that can be captured by indicators like ENSO, or regress against known drivers of climate change (but these aren't always fully up to date or known precisely, e.g. aerosols) to factor out the underlying warming.
another option (as I did here) is to fit a trend to recent years and take the final point on the trend as an estimate of the underlying warming in 2024 (rather than the actual 2024 value which is trend+variability)
I'm sorry if I made you think this reaction is about your research.
Totally get that you use scientific methods.
I dont get the scientific universal accepted norm, that we call the 10 yrs average of 5 yrs ago or even the 20 yrs average of 10 yrs ago 'the current average', (while seeing CO2 rising).
Because climate scientists have no predictive model of El Nino/La Nina cycles which means they have no idea of how to discriminate short term changes from a trend.
I know, I just do not think they should call their average measurement over the last 10 years "current", or "we havent passed 1,5 yet" when we dont know where the 10 years average line will be in 5 years, because that is the moment the 10 yrs average line passes 2024
Its just statistical nonsense.
Comments
HadCRUT does seem to show the least amount of accelerating curve upwards out of the datasets. Berkeley Earth will likey cross 1.5C three years before HadCRUT and six years before GISS/NOAA (assuming they continue to function)
Climate Catastrophe hitting us and why you want to explain that maybe it's not quite as bad as it seems.
🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
which has huge implications given that this is a political problem not a science thing. science only tells us some interesting facts.
a tragedy of the commons is political. making the ocean inertia top dog science wise.
is this close? it's 40 years old?
Or marry michael mann 🤣🤣
Depressing 🐂💩
We do not know, where we are today
We will know in 10 years, as we know today, where we have been in 2015.
I mean come on, its not as if we will stop emissions next week.
The weakness of such an approach is that it ignores the potentially extreme impacts of entering major tipping point ranges that could heavily impact temperatures in the very near term.
If someone told me I am 62 yrs. old, because that is the average over the last 10 years, I would declare it misunderstanding of statistics.
Isn't it much better to say that we don't know the 10 years average temperature of 2024 yet?
Totally get that you use scientific methods.
I dont get the scientific universal accepted norm, that we call the 10 yrs average of 5 yrs ago or even the 20 yrs average of 10 yrs ago 'the current average', (while seeing CO2 rising).
This will soon change.
Its just statistical nonsense.