"Last year, more than 40 percent of the Earth’s surface was at least 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than in the late 1800s, a Washington Post analysis of temperature data released by the nonprofit Berkeley Earth found. A warming level of 1.5 degrees is the benchmark set in the 2015 Paris climate agreement, a crucial target which experts say could limit the most dire consequences of climate change compared to two or three degrees of warming.
Roughly one-fifth of the globe has already warmed by more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6F) compared with the late 1800s, before humans started burning fossil fuels on a large scale. Around 5 percent of the planet has warmed more than 3 degrees Celsius (5.4F) — a fast-warming area around the Arctic.
“Nothing magical happens at 1.5 degrees where impacts suddenly get substantially worse than 1.45,” said Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at Berkeley Earth. But there would be “a big escalation in impacts” between 1.5 and 2 degrees of warming, he added.
The Post has mapped the regions that saw the largest temperature anomalies in 2023 — places that have warmed so fast that the climate is already testing the limits of human infrastructure and the ability of the natural world to cope."
John Muyskens and Niko Kommenda report for the Washington Post January 12, 2024.
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