[Image: FMT]
If a new study is to be believed, the world might’ve blown past the Paris Climate Agreement’s threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius years ago.
The Paris Climate Accords in 2015 set the ambitious goal of keeping global temperatures at 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures, but a study by the University of Western Australia Oceans Institute says we might’ve gone past 1.7 degrees Celsius in 2020.
The Institute studied Caribbean sclerosponges to create an ocean temperature timeline dating back to the 1700s. These sponges are commonly studied by scientists and often referred to as “natural archives” because they grow so slowly – less than a millimeter a year. This essentially allows them to lock away climate data in their limestone skeletons, much like tree rings or ice cores.
The sclerosponges also make their home in the Caribbean, so they are naturally protected from major ocean currents, and their homes inside underwater caves give them a relatively stable environment.
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Malcolm McCulloch, lead author of the study, told the Associated Press, “The big picture is that the global warming clock for emissions reductions to minimize the risk of dangerous climate change has been brought forward by at least a decade.”
“Basically, time’s running out.”
What all of this means is that the world started warming up nearly 80 years before previous estimates, and we already surpassed the Paris Climate Agreement’s threshold in 2020. If the 1.7 degrees Celsius calculations are correct, we even kicked the threshold’s butt. Humans rule!
Some experts are a bit sceptical about the results, with one quoted as saying“ it begs credulity to claim that the instrumental record is wrong based on paleosponges from one region of the world … It honestly doesn’t make any sense to me.”
Other experts want to see more data before throwing out the goalposts set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPPC still maintains that Earth is hovering at a temperature change of around 1.2 degrees Celsius. Unfortunately for us all, even if the sponges are wrong, there’s mounting evidence that we are in the process of crossing over the 1.5 degree threshold as we speak.
Either way, this January was the hottest on record, clocking in at 1.7 degrees above pre-industrial temperatures. Not good.
Whatever the sponges and scientists say, it’s definitely getting hot in here. Perhaps then, as the song suggests, the only logical thing left to do is take off all our clothes. Any other ideas?
[Source: Popular Mechanics]
