Earth is hurtling towards its average temperature rising by 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels.
The 1.5 °C figure was a preferred maximum warming limit set by the United Nations in the landmark 2015 Paris agreement on climate change.
In Breaching the Paris limit requires a long-term trend of warming of 1.5 °C or more, but some research groups tracking average annual temperatures in isolation are already predicting 1.5 °C of warming this year.
In May, a World Meteorological Organization report said that there was a 66% chance that the average annual temperature would breach 1.5 °C of warming between 2023 and 2027.
In its August 2023 monthly update, Berkeley Earth — a non-profit climate-monitoring organization — has put the chance of 2023 being on average 1.5 °C warmer at 55%.
Its analysis does not show that 2023 will reach an average of 1.5 °C of warming.
“Our Aug 2023 anomaly is 1.25 °C, but that is relative to the twentieth-century average, whereas Berkeley uses 1850–1900. »
