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Earth Science

Scientists Give Earth a 50-50 Chance of Hitting Key Warming Mark By 2026 (npr.org) 202

The world is creeping closer to the warming threshold international agreements are trying to prevent, with nearly a 50-50 chance that Earth will temporarily hit that temperature mark within the next five years, teams of meteorologists across the globe predicted. NPR reports: With human-made climate change continuing, there's a 48% chance that the globe will reach a yearly average of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels of the late 1800s at least once between now and 2026, a bright red signal in climate change negotiations and science, a team of 11 different forecast centers predicted for the World Meteorological Organization late Monday. The odds are inching up along with the thermometer. Last year, the same forecasters put the odds at closer to 40% and a decade ago it was only 10%.

The team, coordinated by the United Kingdom's Meteorological Office, in their five-year general outlook said there is a 93% chance that the world will set a record for hottest year by the end of 2026. They also said there's a 93% chance that the five years from 2022 to 2026 will be the hottest on record. Forecasters also predict the devastating fire-prone megadrought in the U.S. Southwest will keep going. "We're going to see continued warming in line with what is expected with climate change," said UK Met Office senior scientist Leon Hermanson, who coordinated the report.

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Scientists Give Earth a 50-50 Chance of Hitting Key Warming Mark By 2026

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  • Yet stil (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Viol8 ( 599362 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2022 @06:11AM (#62522274) Homepage

    Someone will pop up from the rabbit hole and tell us this is all normal climate variation or the sun (because obviously trained climate scientists with phds never thought of that) or it was just this warm in the past in medieval warm period/roman times/etc nothing to see here. move along please. I'm really not sure what itll take to wake these people up.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Indeed. It does not look good and continues to get worse. Reminds me of those dying from COVID that denied it exists (because obviously the whole medical field is clueless) right up until they died from it. Although COVID was a minor irrelevant blip compared to what is coming with climate change.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Joce640k ( 829181 )

      I'm really not sure what itll take to wake these people up.

      They don't want to be woken up.

      They're too busy watching youtube videos about how to add enough turbos to get their giant SUVs to do a quarter mile as fast as an exotic sports car.

      • More like trying to figure out how to get rich on youtube like the other loser content creators.
      • by dbialac ( 320955 )
        It's not the engine that is the problem, it's the fuel. Properly sourced ethanol such as sugar cane or hydrogen with get you a lower carbon footprint than a battery based electric car ever will. Brazil uses the former today extensively.
        • by q_e_t ( 5104099 )

          Properly sourced ethanol such as sugar cane or hydrogen with get you a lower carbon footprint than a battery based electric car ever will.

          Hydrogen is mostly supplied today from steam-reformation of natural gas that then needs to go through more processes to create ethanol. I can't see how this is lower carbon than using batteries with energy sourced from renewables. Even if the hydrogen came from hydrolysis using power from wind turbines, then formed the ethanol from further processes, that's unlikely to be more efficient than taking the energy from the turbines and putting it in a battery.

    • by fazig ( 2909523 )
      "It's the sun" was over a decade ago, I think. Goal posts have been moving ever since then, and of course before.

      I've noticed the prevalent contemporary goal post being "we're coming out of an ice age".
    • by dbialac ( 320955 )
      It doesn't mean they're not right. You can have a point on both sides of the argument. For example, the beginning of the industrial revolution was a period known as the little ice age. We don't want that, either. Meanwhile, I read a study that found that both sides had a point: there are both natural causes and man-made causes, and that the man-made causes are causing a lot of additional warming. Studying astronomy, I learned that the earth is on what is collectively a 30,000 year cycle between warmer perio
      • Climate change is definitely happening and man-based activity is definitely a strong contributor, but we need to be honest about the total picture as well.

        Which half of that sentence do you think the average person will hear if we use it as The Climate Message?

        Is it the half that we can actually do something about?

        • by dbialac ( 320955 )
          You don't only use one half, you use both. It's a half truth and leads to bigger problems down the road. For example, ask a normal somebody what we do after we've addressed the man-made part of climate change and they'll respond, "We should restore the climate to the way it was before the industrial revolution." I've asked and always get that answer. The half truth leads us to that, and in 100 years or less people will think that is a good idea. People today still think carrots improve vision as it was fed
      • It doesn't mean they're not right. You can have a point on both sides of the argument.

        People like eating fish and fish are in the ocean. QED the sinking of the Titanic wasn't all bad because it brought people closer to the fish.

    • I'm really not sure what itll take to wake these people up.

      Start by providing predictions which are phrased better than "flip a coin to find out if we're right!" I know that's not how the scientists intended their "50-50 chance" to be interpreted but that's how many will take it.

    • Re:Yet stil (Score:5, Interesting)

      by mmell ( 832646 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2022 @10:26AM (#62522822)

      You forgot about guys like me that've been paying attention for a while. If there's a 50-50 chance of us hitting the mark, it'll be from the wrong side. According to the climate science of the seventies and eighties, we passed the point of no return a couple decades ago.

      So long, and thanks for all the fish.

  • Just like the over-achievers they are. 1.5C? Pathetic! We can do much better and all it takes is continuing as we are. Which we are doing.

    • Prepare to read at 1.5 in the future
    • The only questions are how fast we're going to reach any given point, and how high the peak will be. Yet even here on news for supposed nerds there are people arguing that AGW is fake.

      Sometimes I think this place is a trap for smart people with good ideas. Just get them wasting their time arguing so they don't do anything.

      • nobody really knows the peak because we don't know 1) whether people will actually curtail burning of fossil fuels (so far we've done zippo) and 2) where tipping points are. There are positive feedback mechanisms that can kick in and keep us moving higher no matter how much we reduce burning ff.
        • by gweihir ( 88907 )

          Well, yes. But if you are driving towards a wall in the distance and you are unsure you can break before hitting it, is it a smart move to accelerate instead or not to try breaking at all?

          Personally, I will be very interested to see what tipping points really are there and what accelerating and decelerating factors we will see. It can go both ways, after all. The Fermi Paradox does not make me very hopeful though.

        • Right, that's why those are still questions.

          I presume the answers are going to be "too hot to handle" and "sooner than you think", in the opposite order of course, because as you say we are doing roughly nothing to address the problem.

      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        The only questions are how fast we're going to reach any given point, and how high the peak will be. Yet even here on news for supposed nerds there are people arguing that AGW is fake.

        Indeed. The level of mental dysfunctionality some people can reach is astounding.

        Sometimes I think this place is a trap for smart people with good ideas. Just get them wasting their time arguing so they don't do anything.

        In some sense yes. I am still reading and posting here for two reasons: a) Sometimes there are actually smart comments and answers and b) to remind myself that educated and reasonably IQ-equipped people can still be as dumb as bread with regards to actually seeing and understanding reality. Nicely demonstrates that Intelligence is a tool you actually have to be willing to use non-selectively to reap its benefits.

        Item b) is admi

  • by h33t l4x0r ( 4107715 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2022 @06:36AM (#62522298)
    Not making it means 100M+ years for ocean plastics to break down and some new species to have a decent shot. I'm feeling ambivalent about which scenario I prefer at this point.
  • by monkeyxpress ( 4016725 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2022 @06:50AM (#62522316)

    We found that we can keep large parts of our economy running without millions of people having to mindlessly shuffle from their homes to an office everyday. But now that is being unwound because it is apparently imperative that we bump into each other at the water cooler.

    If we can't even grab that climate change gift horse with two hands, then let's stop kidding ourselves that anything is going to change. I seriously believe our best hope is (a) climate models are somehow wrong, (b) we heavily research nuclear and climate engineering technology to deploy if (a) turns out to not be the case.

    Otherwise we are on a rather inevitable trajectory now and we're too collectively stupid to do anything about it.

    • You forgot "geoengineering".

      My take is that every politician has heard of it and is relying on it as an excuse not to do anything that might rock the boat.

      Ironically: The exact same climate experts who are being told they're wrong today will suddenly be called upon as "experts" to do the geoengineering.

      Even more ironically: They'll be the ones that get blamed if the geoengineering doesn't magically work out.

      So it goes.

      • What universe do you live in where statisticians of climate magically become engineers deeply rooted in fluid physics and thermodynamics? The basic fundamental tools used by both are drastically different. It wont be the same scientists. Hell most climate scientists have no friggen clue how to change the oil in their car or how to use a torque wrench. They are not the engineers youre looking for.
    • We found that we can keep large parts of our economy running without millions of people having to mindlessly shuffle from their homes to an office everyday. But now that is being unwound because it is apparently imperative that we bump into each other at the water cooler.

      Well, that's a rather cute way of explaining the massive corruption behind the commercial real estate market, which is actually the cause of massive pollution. Not to mention an incredible amount of wasted time. ONE employee with an hour-long commute to work, equates to an entire workweek of time lost commuting every month. 12 weeks a year. An entire fiscal quarter, lost sitting behind a steering wheel, ironically making employees sicker, which leads to more lost productivity and worse.

      Go ahead CxOs.

    • > We found that we can keep large parts of our economy running without millions of people having to mindlessly shuffle from their homes to an office everyday. But now that is being unwound because it is apparently imperative that we bump into each other at the water cooler.

      That is not what I saw...
      I saw massive govt support to people who's factory/shop wasn't critical infrastructure and was subsequently closed.
      Massive increase in consumption of random entertainment things. (people stuck at home)
      Massive d

    • We found that we can keep large parts of our economy running without millions of people having to mindlessly shuffle from their homes to an office everyday. But now that is being unwound because it is apparently imperative that we bump into each other at the water cooler.

      Heh. My employer has taken a soft touch approach to this question, allowing many employees who want to go fully remote to do so, and for the rest going to a "hybrid" model, where people are only in the office 2-3 days per week -- and managers are explicitly directed not to enforce even that. But it turns out that most people actually like going into the office from time to time.

      You might think that this would at least provide a partial reduction, right? If people only drive to work two or three times per

  • Hedging? (Score:2, Troll)

    by DrMrLordX ( 559371 )

    50/50 chance eh? That's not a lot of confidence in their climate models. It's really just a coin toss!

    • 50/50 chance eh? That's not a lot of confidence in their climate models. It's really just a coin toss!

      I read it as "It's just as likely to not happen as happen".
      Thank God for experts, I wouldn't want to have to rely on my Magic 8-Ball

  • by e3m4n ( 947977 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2022 @07:14AM (#62522362)
    Its the end of the world as we know it
    Its the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

    Six oclock. TV hour
    Don't get caught in foreign tower
    Slash and burn, return
    Listen to yourself churn
    Lock him in uniform and book burning, bloodletting
    Every motive escalate. Automotive incinerate
    Light a candle, light a votive
    Step down, step down
    Watch a heel crush, crush
    Uh oh, this means no fear; cavalier
    Renegade and steer clear!
    A tournament, a tournament
    A tournament of lies
    Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives
    And I decline
  • This seems to be the first time that climate model uncertainty is actually hinted at in a public release. Naturally an interesting spin is put on it to reinforce the desired message because really if you approach people with a 50-50 chance on most things the expectation is pretty much that it's a bad bet. But tack on "climate alarm" and perhaps the expectation is different.

    All climate projections are based on models. All predictive models have a degree of uncertainty, one that gets quite large the furthe

    • by gtall ( 79522 )

      "Just curious why that is." Because your reading comprehension is poor.

    • You should read one of the reports. Most have a specific percentage definition of "likely" "probable" etc, and these words are dispersed throughout the text, precisely stating the degree of uncertainty of said models.

    • by ljw1004 ( 764174 )

      But the uncertainty is never mentioned. You never hear "By 2050 the global average temperature will have risen 2 degrees ... plus or minus xx degrees". Just curious why that is.

      The uncertainty is always mentioned. I think you haven't noticed it. Here, do a google image search for ipcc. On the very first page of results, the first row is solely logos, and the second row starts with a graph that shows uncertainty (shaded confidence intervals)
      https://ccimgs-2021.s3.amazona... [amazonaws.com]

      I see the same on many BBC news reports of IPCC work, for instance https://www.bbc.com/news/scien... [bbc.com]

      I think almost all the IPCC graphs I've seen have shown either a range of scenarios, or confidence intervals, or

  • too late (Score:4, Interesting)

    by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2022 @10:12AM (#62522778) Journal
    We WILL hit it. Why? Because as long as nations are allowed to KEEP ADDING NEW FF PLANTS, and not just replacing old ones with cleaner ones, we will continue to grow our CO2.
    At this point, if America was to drop ours to zero, it would STILL grow. Why? Because America is now around 11-12% of the CO2.
    That is just 2-3 years worth of Chinese and Indian growth, ALONE, not including the rest of the undeveloped nations.
    • Time for an infertility virus that reduces human reproduction by 50%, then? Growth will quickly transform into "shrinkth."
      • Time for an infertility virus that reduces human reproduction by 50%, then? Growth will quickly transform into "shrinkth."

        Nonsense, for many reasons, but I'll point out just one: That "shrinkth" would have small effect for many decades. You're not considering the long lags created by the length of human lifespans (lags that are, BTW, the only reason our population is growing today). Adding 70M fewer people every year would reduce the rate of population growth (though it would continue growing for a while), move the date of peak population forward 10 years or so, and reduce the peak population to maybe 8.5B, but you wouldn't s

        • Limit population through technology AND also limit CO2 output. The long-term goal should be under a billion human on Terra in 300 years or so.
  • Stating odds for something for which there have been no trials, i.e. no previous actual occurrences, is just plain BS.

All seems condemned in the long run to approximate a state akin to Gaussian noise. -- James Martin

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