Global temperatures peaked to their highest levels ever recorded this month, with July possibly ranking as the hottest 30-day period in the past 120,000 years, according to a new analysis.
For that reason, climate scientists take the ramp-up of fossil fuel burning as a zero-point. From that baseline, annual and monthly deviations show scientists how humanity it changing global temperatures over time. “Global mean temperature doesn’t kill anyone. But of course, global mean temperature is the fever temperature we measure from our planet,” Otto said.
“Beyond those direct impacts, it's very important to keep in mind that extreme heat exposure is also starting to undermine our health through more indirect pathways.” said Romanello, pointing to everything from the availability of food to people taking time off work. “It’s like we’ve had the global air conditioner on for three years,” Bill Merryfield, a research scientist who works with Environment and Climate Change Canada, said of La Niña's outgoing cooling effects.
“It may be a perfect storm, but I don’t think too many people saw it coming so soon,” said Merryfield, whose models helped feed the WMO recent climate forecasts. That future is not inevitable, though the window to avoid it is increasingly closing, say experts. The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says planetary emissions need to peak before 2025 and drop more than 40 per cent by 2030 if the world has a hope of remaining below the 1.5 C warming threshold.
“We know who is responsible for the majority of these impacts. We are past the place where we can no longer attribute these impacts directly to particular actors,” said Catherine Abreu, the executive director of Destination Zero, a Canadian organization working to transition away from fossil fuels.
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