Record-breaking temperatures may be indication of global warming reaching 1.5°C: Experts

The record-breaking temperature across the globe last year may very well be an indication that the world has entered an era where global warming has reached 1.5 C, scientists have warned.

Such a condition has not been faced by modern humans.

“Every fraction of a degree beyond this level translates into more extreme weather, biodiversity loss, and human suffering,” said William Ripple, Professor at Oregon State University.

The threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial set by the Paris Agreement levels seems a small number but comes with massive implications for nature, including humans.

This is a risk marker as more warming means a greater likelihood of floods, storms, and heatwaves eventually leading to a rise in sea level and species extinctions.

Scientists have tried to understand how 2024’s record-breaking heat, the first whole year above 1.5°C, matches with long-term Paris climate goals, according to the World Meteorological Organization.

A single year above the limit does not break the Paris Agreement, as long-term temperatures are measured at an average of 20-30 years period.

By that calculation, the earth’s temperature has so far reached roughly 1.3 degrees Celsius, which has been warmer in the last 125,000 years, say scientists.

A team of experts based in Germany and Austria assessed whether crossing 1.5C over one year might be an “early warning.”

One of the studies authored by Alex Cannon, a research scientist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, found that if high temperature like 1.5C continue beyond 18 months, “breaching the Paris Agreement threshold is virtually certain.”

Meanwhile, Emanuele Bevacqua, a climate scientist at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Germany, and colleagues concluded that 2024 is the first year in the 20 years reaching the 1.5C warming level at “likely” to “virtually certain.”

The Paris Agreement was drafted in 2015 to address the growing concern over climate change. A framework was set to limit global warming to below 1.5C or below 2C above pre-industrial levels by 2100.

If this threshold is crossed, it will lead to devastating effects and potentially irreversible implications for many important components of the ecosystems necessary to make Earth a hospitable planet.

“[M]any of us expect that 2025 will be cooler than both 2023 and 2024, and is unlikely to be the warmest year in the instrumental record,” climatologist Zeke Hausfather wrote in a blog post on Feb 10.

“January 2025 stands out as anomalous even by the standards of the last two years,” Hausfather wrote. “[A]t least at the start of the year nature seems not to be following our expectations.