The objective of maintaining the long -term heating of the global climate below the threshold of +2 ° C in relation to the pre -industrial period, a limit set by the Paris Agreement, “is dead”said James Hansen on Tuesday, the former chief climatologist in NASA.
Global temperatures will rise above the 2 -degree threshold, says Shutterstock photo expert
James Hansen has published this week with several scientists a study that concluded that certain phenomena underlying the climate change were underestimated, according to Agerpres.
According to their analysis on the current situation and according to their forecasts, “2 ° C lens is dead”James Hansen said on Tuesday at a presentation.
“Impossible scenario”
One of the ambitious scenarios formulated by Giec – the intergovernmental group of experts in the evolution of the climate, mandated by the UN -, which relies on a net decrease in greenhouse gas emissions, which could make it possible to maintain the heating process under this threshold, has become “today impossible”added the American expert.
The cause would be, he explains, the worldwide energy consumption, which “grows up and will continue to grow.” with “a majority part of energy that comes from fossil fuels”the main greenhouse gas transmitters.
In addition to the too slow energy transition, the American researcher and his team underline their study “a lack of realism in climate assessment”estimating that the latter is more sensitive to greenhouse gas emissions than is believed today.
Sulfur emissions
In their analysis, James Hansen and his colleagues also analyzed the role played by a change in the regulations in the maritime sector in 2020, whose effects on the climate would have been minimized, in their opinion.
That change has translated by a reduction in sulfur emissions, which reflects the sunlight in space and thus participates in the cooling of the earth’s atmosphere.
Researchers also estimate that AMOC (Atlantic-Meridal Circulation System), a system of ocean currents that play a major role in regulating the climate, will cease “In the next 20-30 years”mainly as a result of ice melting.
Such a disappearance would lead to “Major problems, especially at an increase in the sea level of several meters”warned the study authors, talking about “a point without return.”
Global average temperatures will increase
According to forecasts, global average temperatures should remain equal or become higher than +1.5 ° C in relation to those of the pre -industrial period in the years to follow, before reaching the threshold of +2 ° C by 2045.
Adopted almost ten years ago by most countries of the world, the Paris agreement, from which Washington recently announced that it will withdraw for the second time, aims to maintain the increase in global average “well below the 2 ° C threshold” in relation to the pre -industrial levels and the continuation of the efforts to limit this heating to 1.5 ° C.
All these measures aim to significantly limit the most catastrophic consequences of climatic changes.
The climate on Earth has already warmed by 1.3 ° C, on average, and the threshold of 1.5 ° C has been exceeded for the first time in the last two years, according to the World Meteorological Organization (OMM).
