Sea level rise due to water melting can be halved when its temperature rises to 1.5 ° C

Just yesterday, scientists said recent pledges from the United States and other countries could help limit global warming to two degrees by the end of this century compared to the average industrial revolution, but only if efforts to curb emissions are successful. Zero or carbon dioxide neutrality.

Six years ago, more than 190 countries in Paris agreed to keep the temperature rise below the 2 ° C threshold, and ideally even below 1.5 ° C.

The Climate Action Tracker, which is being tracked by a group of scientists translating targets and actual emissions into estimates of temperature, predicts that the world will currently be 0.9 ° C higher than the less ambitious Paris target and that the altitude will therefore be 2.9 ° C.

“This is still a catastrophic climate change, and it is a virtually uncontrollable situation that we must avoid by all means,” said climate scientist Niklas Hoon of the New Climate Institute, one of the study’s authors.

Taking the latest proposals from various governments into their calculations, the estimate was reduced to an increase of 2.4 ° C, an improvement of 0.2 ° C from the previous optimistic forecast the group made in December. US President Joe Biden’s ambitious new climate goals made a significant contribution to the revised estimate, along with commitments from the European Union, China, Japan and Britain.

But if the 131 countries responsible for nearly two-thirds of global emissions met their promised or discussed carbon neutrality target, the two-degree target could be achieved, Hoon said. However, this requires more commitments, and will mean reducing global emissions in half over the next 10 years.

The study on sea level rise was published in nature. The new estimate for the Climate Action Tracker can be found at the website. This article is based on a press release from VUB, and a phone conversation with Professor Huybrechts and Telex from the Associated Press.