Climate Report Calls Red Alert

Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

Matt McGrath, August 9, 2021 (BBC News)

“Human activity is changing the climate in unprecedented and sometimes irreversible ways…[and is likely to produce] increasingly extreme heatwaves, droughts and flooding, and a key temperature limit being broken in just over a decade…[But] a catastrophe can be avoided if the world acts fast…[because] deep cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases could stabilise rising temperatures…[according to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group of scientists whose findings are endorsed by the world's governments…[The IPCC said] ‘it is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, oceans and land’…[and] that since 1970, global surface temperatures have risen faster than in any other 50-year period over the past 2,000 years…

click to enlarge

“…Global surface temperature was 1.09C higher in the decade between 2011-2020 than between 1850-1900…The past five years have been the hottest on record since 1850…The recent rate of sea level rise has nearly tripled compared with 1901-1971…It is ‘virtually certain’ that hot extremes including heatwaves have become more frequent and more intense since the 1950s, while cold events have become less frequent and less severe…[and changes to many of our planetary support systems] are irreversible on timescales of centuries to millennia…The oceans will continue to warm and become more acidic. Mountain and polar glaciers will continue melting for decades or centuries…

click to enlarge

The authors believe that 1.5C will be reached by 2040 in all scenarios. If emissions aren't slashed in the next few years, this will happen even earlier…The consequences of going past 1.5C over a period of years would be unwelcome…[but temperatures] will reach 1.5C above 1850-1900 levels by 2040 under all emissions scenarios…There will be an increasing occurrence of some extreme events ‘unprecedented in the historical record’ even at warming of 1.5C...[There are likely to be extreme sea level events and] fire weather in many regions…For political leaders, the report is another in a long line of wake-up calls…” click here for more

click to enlarge

Tweet