by L. Lueken, Nov 11, 2024 in ClimateChangeDispatch
Multiple outlets have posted articles covering a report from the European Copernicus Climate Change Service (“Copernicus”) which says that 2024 will be the first to surpass 1.5°C warming since preindustrial times, which the media claims will cause untold weather disasters. [emphasis, links added]
This is mostly false.
Although 2024 will likely have higher average temperatures than in recent decades, it is not the end of the year yet, and there is limited evidence to support the claim that it will represent the highest temperatures humans have ever experienced and no evidence whatsoever that weather disasters have gotten or will get worse.
The BBC and CNN are among the numerous mainstream media outlets reporting on Copernicus’ report.
CNN describes the report as “devastating news for the planet that comes as America chooses a president that has promised to undo its climate progress both at home and abroad.”
The Copernicus group estimates that 2024 will end up 1.55°C hotter than the 1850-1900 average, which is 0.05°C above the warming limit set by the Paris Agreement. This may be true, but there is no evidence that the 1.5℃ threshold is some kind of deadly tipping point for weather disasters.
The same organization sounded the alarm last year that the “limit” was breached for several months in a row while ignoring natural factors like an underwater volcano eruption.
As for the 1.5-degree limit itself, it was not established by professional climate scientists. Only one of the people who were on the panel who came up with the value was even a meteorologist.
Two other points worth noting. The claim is a bit of sleight of hand, cherry-picking the data for comparison. Earth was only just coming out of the Little Ice Age at the onset of the 1850 period, one of the coldest periods during the past millennia.
When you pick an unusually cold period for comparison, modest warming seems more dramatic than it is.
Second, the 1.5℃ is an arbitrary temperature choice. As Climate Realism has discussed repeatedly here, here, and here, it was chosen by politicians for political reasons.
There is no scientific evidence it represents some tipping point for catastrophic climate change. The world has likely warmed more than 2°C since the 1700s, with no apocalypse.
One would think that if warming causes more extreme weather there would be solid data and identifiable consistent trends showing an increase in extreme weather, but there is none.
Three of the weather events CNN cites at the end of their article as proof of a supposed climate emergency, Hurricane Milton, the flooding in Spain, and low snow amounts at Mt. Fuji are not proof of a climate emergency.
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