The last seven years are the hottest in history

(CNN) – According to new data, the last seven years have been the hottest on record because the Earth’s temperature continues to rise dangerously due to emissions. Fossil fuels That trap is hot.

A new analysis by the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, which monitors global warming and other climate indicators, reveals that 2021 has become the fifth warmest year on record.

Although the long-term trend is upwards, annual fluctuations in global temperatures are expected, especially due to large-scale weather and sea patterns such as El Nino and La Nina, the latter being in 2021 and causing overall temperature cooling.

“The most important thing is not to consider the classification of a particular year, but rather to look at the bigger picture of warmer temperatures, and that constant warming does not mean that each year is warmer than the next,” Frieza Wombork said. , Copernicus Primary Scientist. “But this is what we’ve seen so far. Every decade is hotter than in the past, and it is likely to continue.”

According to Copernicus, scientists warn that the Earth’s average temperature is about 1.1 ° C higher than the pre – industrial level, which is 73% towards the 1.5 ° C range. Adverse effects of climate change.

Kim Kobe, director of the Global Change Program at the Georgia Institute of Technology, said the 1.1 ° C warming was a “conservative” estimate.

“It’s fair to say that 1.1 ° C is conservative because the last half of the last decade was hotter than the first season,” Cobb, who was not involved in the report, told CNN.

Even at 1.1 degrees, 2021 made it very clear that the world was already feeling the unprecedented effects of the climate crisis, many of which were not ready. Dissolves in the Arctic, Deadly flood, Heat waves Unprecedented and historic drought. Copernicus discovered global concentrations Greenhouse gases, The root cause of the climate crisis and its increasingly severe disasters, Keep increasing.

1.1 degrees Celsius

In 2015, world leaders agreed to listen Scientists warn And with a preferred target of 1.5 ° C, controls the rapid rise of the Earth’s temperature to less than 2 ° C above pre-industrial levels.

That threshold does not seem large, but NASA scientists They say a rise of 1 or 2 degrees in body temperature is similar to how it causes fever. With each episode of warming, the disease worsens and the chance of hospitalization increases.

As for the planet, at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution from the middle to the late 19th century, when humans increased their burning of fossil fuels such as coal, scientists were monitoring the rise in terms of global warming. And oil.

For each future increase in global warming, Kobe says, recent climate research describes stratification effects that threaten all aspects of the earth’s needs and needs, such as biodiversity, freshwater and food supply.

“We have crossed the 1 degree warming limit and we are still experiencing a series of extreme weather and climate events,” Kobe told CNN. “With rare exceptions, these peaks may certainly be related to human-induced warming. In the future, we should expect an increase in the frequency and severity of these peaks, which will have a major impact on communities around the world.”

2021 brought heat waves and floods Mass victims; It rained Greenland Summit For the first time in history; And one Historical drought Destroyed much of western America, triggering large and devastating wildfires. Lack of water Never seen.

The effects of the planet’s rapid warming were felt in every corner of the globe. Copernicus researchers have pointed to a number of areas with the highest average temperatures by 2021, from the western United States and Canada to Greenland, and the vast areas of Central and North Africa and the Middle East.

The agency reported that last summer in Europe was the hottest on record, with several extreme weather events wreaking havoc across the continent, including deadly ones. Floods in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, as well as severe wildfires in the eastern and central Mediterranean.

In North America, the analysis found periods of incredible temperature deviations from the norm Burning heat wave In the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia. Common effects Dixie fire, The second largest recorded in California Evil smoke spread across the continent.

As the symptoms of a flu-like planet worsen, the UN Convention on Climate Change Intergovernmental Panel (IPCC) Finished in August The only way to stop the dangerous trend is to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions while eliminating the global warming gases that humans have already introduced into the atmosphere.

An “encouraging” reason for optimism

In November, the Climate Action Tracker system warned that the world was on track 2.4 degrees heat, If not, despite the countries’ new climate commitments, including those agreed upon UN Climate Conference Held in Glasgow (COP26).

Experts warn that by 2030 global greenhouse gas emissions will more than double what is needed to control global warming to 1.5 degrees. Worse, not with current policies and proposals, but what countries are doing now, the organization expects the global temperature to be catastrophic at 2.7 C.

At that time, the planet will be in a state of crisis. The Copernican report shows that despite global epidemics, carbon emissions will continue to accelerate in 2021. In the short term, methane emissions from greenhouse gases, which are about 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide, continued to increase “significantly”.

Wamborg noted that increased greenhouse gas emissions are triggering the planet’s rapid warming, adding that “the global temperature curve will continue to rise until we continue to emit greenhouse gases.”

The reward of humanity Prevent the planet’s temperature from exceeding 1.5 CKobe said it should be enough to inspire bold and collective action. Controlling fossil fuel emissions to that extent would “cool the planet in the second half of this century”.

“The idea that we can live to see the reversal of global warming is encouraging, as generations have seen after decades of global warming,” Cobb said. “This is a future worth fighting for and giving life to one energy desire at a time.”