Hitzerekorde – 1,5 °C bald erreicht?

<em><strong>Heat Records–1,5⁰C trespassed soon?</strong></em> Since March 2023, the most recent records of the global means of the 2m atmospheric and the sea surface temperatures have trespassed levels to an extend that the question at what time the 1.5 degrees limit in the arithmetic’s of the Paris Agreement (ÜvP 2015) is reached becomes highly due. Moreover, the increasing dynamic of global warming poses new challenges to the climate change scientific community with regard to monitoring methods and climate change attribution. Nevertheless, to be relevant for the Paris Agreement, an exceedance of the 1.5°C limit needs to sustain across multiple decades, i.e. 20yrs or longer. According a most recent analysis of WMO the most recent decadal average for the years 2014-2023 is estimated to amount “just” 1.2±0.12°C, so there’s still a margin of 0.3°C to the lower limit of the Paris Agreement. However, in the most recent all-time record year 2023 the annual average was already 1.45 ± 0.12°C above the pre-industrial level. Moreover, the ever growing green-house-gas emissions have not yet reached a turning point towards lower rates, making it virtually impossible to stay below the aforementioned limit at all. This calls for a new view on the 1.5°C limit focussing on best efforts on keeping this ambitious limit within reach during the unavoidable overshoot period, simply not to lose control on the enormous extra costs resulting from every tenth of degree of further global warming, exceeding already today the corresponding mitigations costs.