Earth’s temperature is 1C away from becoming dangerous according to scientists. Data collected from the U.K. Met Office as well as the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia has shown that average temperatures around the world during the months of January and September this year have escalated and may give scientists cause to worry about the negative effects this phenomenon could have on the planet.
According to warnings issued by the researchers collecting the data, global temperatures are now, on the average, with 1.02 degrees Celsius higher than what they were in the preindustrial era. Director of the Met Office Hadley Centre Stephen Belcher has warned that the state of our modern climate is clearly heavily influenced by human activities and actions.
Another sign of concerning deterioration in our planet’s climate is the quantity of carbon dioxide in the air which has also reached a concentration that has never recorder before. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has recently published the new figures and the quantity of carbon in the air has now matched or surpassed 400 parts per million for the whole year, an all-time high in history.
Michel Jarraud, a representative for the World Meteorological Organization, has explained the negative consequences that these quickly escalating rates will have on the world. Some of the most important ill effects he mentioned were rising global temperatures, even more severe meteorological phenomena such as floods or heat waves as well as rising sea levels, the increased melting of ice and a rise in the acidity level of oceans.
The fact that global temperatures and the carbon dioxide concentration in the air are rising with such a speed also means that scientists are less able to predict the exact impact that these changes will have on the environment. But it is by now acknowledged by scientists that a rise in global temperatures impacts anything from water supplies and food security to loss of wildlife habitat and melting of the Antarctic ice.
And while these negative effects obviously impact both mankind and all of the other creatures on Earth, it doesn’t seem that the dangers of climate change are perfectly clear to everyone. However there has been a rise in the interest shown by both companies and individuals towards limiting the negative impact of climate change in recent years because of how dire the situation has become.
Scientists explain that global temperatures are now only 1 degree Celsius away from reaching truly dangerous levels. This has prompted the U.N to organize a global assembly in order to discuss the ill effects of climate change and hopefully draft a legally binding international agreement in order to limit carbon emissions and keep global warming from increasing more than 2 degrees Celsius.
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