Even if all countries were to comply with their current commitments under the Paris Climate Agreement, the planet is still heading towards a 2.7 degrees Celsius warming by the year 2100.
This is the prediction of a recent study published in the journal Science.
Exceeding the 1.5-degree limit even by fulfilling the Paris Agreement
Since Earth exceeded the 1.5-degree limit of warming compared to the pre-industrial period in 2024, the planet is rapidly heading towards even greater warming and irreversible change.
“This is a reality check: we took a first step by signing the Paris Agreement (2016), but we are already living in the ‘changed world’ we are trying to prevent,” stated Northern Arizona University’s Ecosystem Ecology professor Ted Schuur in a press release. “It’s time to take the next step to adjust our climate goals and adapt to this new reality.”
The Arctic’s impact on global warming
Why did we exceed the 1.5-degree warming much earlier than expected? Part of the answer has to do with what is happening above the Arctic Circle, explained Schuur.
The research, summarized by Schuur and his colleagues in an edition of Science focused on the poles, shows that the Arctic is warming nearly four times faster than the rest of the world. The reason? Its frozen surfaces are melting.
Let’s take sea ice, for example. Before the current global warming, the Arctic Ocean would freeze in winter and partially melt in summer. But now, with the planet exceeding the 1.5-degree warming, a larger portion of the winter ice melts each summer, leaving more ocean exposed until late autumn. This accelerates warming because the dark-colored ocean water absorbs more sun than light-colored ice sheets.
“The Arctic seas have already become unrecognizable,” stated Schuur. “The amount of remaining ice at the end of summer keeps decreasing over time. Soon enough, summer ice could become a thing of the past,” disrupting the lives of people living in the region, opening new navigation routes, and undoubtedly triggering new challenges in international relations.
Effects on land and global consequences
On land, warming is affecting the Arctic with equal intensity. As temperatures rise, vast areas of permafrost-covered soil are thawing, releasing carbon sequestered for a long time into the air in the form of greenhouse gases.
Scientists have forecasted that, as warming continues, this decaying organic matter will release amounts of carbon dioxide and methane comparable to the carbon emissions of major industrialized nations.
Unfortunately, said Schuur, these phenomena were not adequately taken into account in policymakers’ calculations in 2016.
“We are talking about a remote place for many people, but the changes in the Arctic don’t stay in the Arctic. Once we lose that organic material ‘freezer,’ it turns into greenhouse gases that go into the atmosphere and accelerate warming. Last summer, Phoenix (Arizona) had 70 days with temperatures exceeding 43 degrees Celsius. That is mainly due to human greenhouse gas emissions, but it was partly accelerated by additional greenhouse gases from the Arctic.”
Schuur pointed out that it is now clear that by complying with the Paris Agreement and current political goals, the planet will warm by 2.7 degrees by the end of this century, creating a world even warmer than what we are experiencing today. It is now our collective task to make communities more resilient to the inevitable change that is coming and try to further reduce human greenhouse gas emissions.
“We cannot prevent change from happening; it’s already taking place,” Schuur concluded. “But we can slow it down by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and manage it as best as we can so that people and ecosystems are better positioned for the future.”
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