Take Heed Of New IPCC Report, Scientists Say, As Earth Heats Up

The sixth annual assessment of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found that the planet is all but guaranteed to continue heating up and will reach 1.5 degrees of warming — the boundary line between ‘manageable’ and ‘catastrophic’ warming — in the next two decades, Zora Teirstein reported for the online environmental magazine Grist.

Photo Insert: The signs of climate change being real could not be more evident than in recent years.

Jessica Tierney, a paleoclimatologist at the University of Arizona and a lead author of the assessment, said the IPCC report doesn't have "new" data. Everything in the report is already published in the scientific literature.

The report is an "assessment," which means it synthesizes what is out there and decides how well we understand what has happened/will happen, she stressed.

Darrell Kaufman, a paleoclimate scientist at Northern Arizona University and another lead author of the report, described how this report differs from the IPCC’s previous report in 2013. The global surface temperature is 0.3 degrees Celsius (0.54 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer now than it was back then. What does that tell us?

“There’s no going back, at least not for centuries,” Kaufman wrote. He also noted that global temperatures are warming to a level that hasn’t been documented on planet Earth for about 125,000 years, the Last Interglacial period.

The report concludes that global temperatures are rising to levels unseen since at least the Last Interglacial, around 125,000 years ago. This compares to AR5, which concluded that the N Hemisphere had warmed to levels unseen in 1400 years, he added.

Zeke Hausfather, director of climate and energy at the Breakthrough Institute, an environmental research center in Berkeley, California, who was a contributing author to the report, says the assessment “provides an unprecedented degree of clarity about the future of our planet.”

The previous IPCC report, he noted, estimated that the planet would likely warm somewhere between 1 and 6 degrees C (1.8 to 10.8 degrees F). This report narrows that range to 2 to 5 degrees C (3.6 to 9 degrees F) if the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is doubled.”

The previous IPCC report, he noted, estimated that the planet would likely warm somewhere between 1 and 6 degrees C (1.8 to 10.8 degrees F). This report narrows that range to 2 to 5 degrees C (3.6 to 9 degrees F) if the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is doubled.”

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