Climate Science Update - 3 Recent Reports
At The Borrowed Earth Project, we make every effort to balance the doom and gloom of current climate science with news and views on what can be done about it, and progress with the energy transition. Otherwise, we can feel as powerless as a rabbit in the headlights, which does not help, and it does not fairly represent the enormous changes taking place, for example in the rollout of renewable energy and its falling prices compared to fossil fuels.
However, while some governments are scaling back their responses to climate change, and some communities are challenging net zero policies, global emissions of CO2 are going up, not coming down. So from time to time we feel the need to go back to the science for a reminder of the urgency of the whole issue. This is a very short account of three important recent reports.
Copernicus Satellite Global Climate Highlights 2023
Observations from the EU’s Copernicus satellite have resulted in some really striking climate data on the scale, extent and impacts of global warming, even allowing for the fact that 2023 saw a transition to an El Nino weather system. These are just some of the key findings of the Copernicus Satellite programme’s Global Climate Highlights 2023 report.
2023 replaced 2016 as the warmest calendar year on records going back to 1950.
2023 was 0.6oC warmer than the average for the years 1991-2020, and 1.48oC warmer than the 1850-1900 pre-industrial level.
Each month for June to December 2023 was warmer than the corresponding month in any previous year. (Subsequent reports have confirmed that this trend has continued through January and February 2024).
All days in 2023 were more than 1oC above the pre-industrial level – the first time on record that this has happened.
Close to 50% of days in 2023 were more than 1.5oC warmer than the 1850-1900 level – two days were more than 2oC warmer.
Global average Sea Surface Temperatures were “persistently and unusually high”.
Marine heatwaves occurred in parts of the Mediterranean, Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean, Indian Ocean, North Pacific and “much of the North Atlantic”.
Extreme weather events around the globe in 2023 included flooding, wildfires, droughts and extreme heat.
Antarctic sea ice reached all time lows in 2023.
Atmospheric CO2 and Methane reached levels of 419ppb and 1902ppb respectively.
By way of comparison, the U.S. NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory estimates that CO2 levels measured in bubbles in ice core samples taken from ‘pre industrial’ ice in Antarctica and Greenland was about 280ppb, and that CO2 levels have risen about 36% in the last 200 years.
Read more here.
Global Carbon Budget Report 2023
A report at the COP28 climate negotiations by the Global Carbon Project pointed out that:
“Greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels are projected to reach a record 36.8 billion metric tons in 2023, an increase of 1.1% over 2022”
The report’s authors pointed out that, while levels of CO2 are declining in some areas, such as the United States and Europe, they are increasing overall. They added that:
“At current rates of emissions, the scientists calculate there is a 50% chance that within seven years global temperatures will regularly exceed the 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels identified in the 2015 Paris Agreement as a threshold beyond which worsening and potentially irreversible effects of global warming are likely to emerge.”
European Climate Risk Assessment
In March 2024, the European Environment Agency published a very critical report on the European Climate Risk Assessment, looking at the state of preparedness of the continent to some of the immediate impacts of the climate changes that its own satellites are reporting. The EEA report concluded that:
“Europe is the fastest warming continent in the world, and climate risks are threatening its energy and food security, ecosystems, infrastructure, water resources, financial stability, and people’s health … many of these risks have already reached critical levels and could become catastrophic without urgent and decisive action. “