Scientists Determine Humans Are Causing Record High Global Warming Rate

June 4, 2024

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The scrutinizing institution involved here is the prestigious University of Leeds.

The annual report titled 'Indicators of Global Climate Change' second edition and led by University of Leeds, reveals that climatic warming caused by human activities have escalated to 1.19 °C in the last decade (2014-2023), a rise from the previously recorded 1.14 °C (2013-2022).

The study, in a focused analysis, found that in 2023 alone, the increase in temperature due to human forces reached 1.3 °C, slightly less than the overall warming (1.43 °C). This suggests that in addition to human factors, natural climate variability also had a significant impact on the leap in temperature in 2023, particularly due to El Niño.

The research also denotes that the available carbon budget – the permissible limit of carbon dioxide emissions before reaching a catastrophic global warming of 1.5 °C – is close to 200 gigatons (billion tons). Currently, this translates into around five years of emissions.

Prior to this, in 2020, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) calculated the remaining carbon budget for 1.5 °C to be somewhere around 300–900 gigatons of CO2, with an approximate central estimation of 500. However, CO2 emissions have been on a continuous upward trend, and as of 2024, the remaining carbon budget stands at 100 to 450 gigatons, with a central estimate of 200.

Professor Piers Forster, Director of the Priestley Centre for Climate Futures at University of Leeds, is coordinating the Indicators of Global Climate Change Project. He explained that while efforts in climate action have somewhat slowed down the rise in greenhouse gas emissions, the global temperatures are still climbing, and at an accelerated pace.

He emphasized that the analysis is centered on tracking the long-term fluctuations resulting from human activities including emissions and climate change, and how these activities are influencing observed temperatures. He noted that the read temperature records were influenced by short-term natural variations, contributing an approximate 10% to the overall warming.

The findings come at a crucial time as climate experts convene in Bonn for the COP29 climate conference, scheduled for November in Baku, Azerbaijan.

While the normative source of scientific information regarding the climate is the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the next major IPCC assessment is due only in 2027. This leads to an 'information gap', given the fast pace of climate change.

The new report is accompanied by an open data and open science platform, titled 'Climate Change Tracker's Indicators of Global Climate Change', that aims to provide a database with updated information on key climate indicators.

The most recent indicator report is published by over 50 scientists and provides insight on the impact of reduced sulfur emissions from the global shipping industry. Sulfur emissions have a cooling effect on the climate, but owing to significant cuts in these emissions, the cooling factor has significantly reduced.

Professor Forster further elaborated that although fossil fuel emissions, which constitute 70% of all greenhouse gases, are the major cause of climate change, other sources of pollution such as cement production, farming and deforestation, and cuts to sulfur emissions are also contributors to warming.

He highlighted the need for rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, and the importance of building more resilient societies, so as to limit the level of global warming we may possibly experience. He also warned against normalizing the devastation caused by wildfires, droughts, floods, and heatwaves as observed in 2023.

This report is expected to play a central role in shaping new Nationally Determined Contributions, essentially the revamped climate plans that all nations have pledged to submit to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) by 2025, in order to curtail emissions and adapt to climate impacts.

Journal citation: Earth System Science Data

Provided by University of Leeds