{"id":61773,"date":"2022-02-04T07:21:43","date_gmt":"2022-02-04T12:21:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=61773"},"modified":"2022-02-04T07:21:43","modified_gmt":"2022-02-04T12:21:43","slug":"fact-check-is-more-than-1-5c-of-global-warming-already-locked-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=61773","title":{"rendered":"Fact-Check: is more than 1.5\u00b0C of global warming already locked in?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Fact-Check: is more than 1.5\u00b0C of global warming already locked in?<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n
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Claim:<\/strong>\u00a0The lag between CO\u2082 emissions and warming means ~0.7\u00b0C of warming is yet to come, and aerosols are masking another ~0.7\u00b0C, meaning warming of much more than 1.5\u00b0C or even 2\u00b0C is already locked in even if we stopped all emissions right now.<\/p>\n

Reality:<\/strong>\u00a0If emissions stopped, falling carbon dioxide levels due to natural carbon sinks would counteract the climate lag. Immediately stopping aerosol emissions would cause a warming boost of ~0.2-0.4\u00b0C, but a slower partial phase-out can reduce this and can be more than countered by also reducing methane emissions. This means that the responsibility for future warming lies with current rather than past actions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is the sixth post in a new climatetippingoints.info series fact-checking claims that various climate tipping points have been crossed, and that sudden catastrophic warming is now inevitable. See the\u00a0<\/em>Introduction<\/em><\/a>\u00a0post for an overview.<\/em><\/p>\n

It is sometimes claimed (e.g.\u00a01<\/a>,2<\/a>,3<\/a>,4<\/a>,5<\/a>,6<\/a>) that more than 1.5\u00b0C or even 2\u00b0C of global warming is already geophysically locked-in even if we immediately stopped all greenhouse gas emissions, and that this has been ignored or\u00a0covered<\/a>\u00a0up<\/a>\u00a0by scientists.<\/p>\n

This is often based on two assumptions: firstly, that the lag between when emissions happen and when warming catches up means ~0.7\u00b0C of warming is in the pipeline already; secondly, that another ~0.6-0.7\u00b0C masked by cooling aerosols will emerge as emissions fall.<\/p>\n

On top of\u00a0a high estimate of ~1.3-1.4\u00b0C of current warming<\/a>\u00a0it\u2019s therefore been stated that ~2.7\u00b0C of warming is already locked in (and some claim\u00a0even<\/a>\u00a0more<\/a>), breaching the Paris Targets already and risking\u00a0triggering extra catastrophic feedbacks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also sometimes claimed that the planet is already beyond a specific threshold in CO\u2082 concentrations (e.g.\u00a0450<\/a>\u2013500<\/a>\u00a0ppm CO\u2082e) beyond which more than 2\u00b0C of warming becomes inevitable.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fact-Check: is more than 1.5\u00b0C of global warming already locked in? Claim:\u00a0The lag between CO\u2082 emissions and warming means ~0.7\u00b0C of warming is yet to come, and aerosols are masking another ~0.7\u00b0C, meaning warming of much more than 1.5\u00b0C or even 2\u00b0C is already locked in even if we stopped all emissions right now. Reality:\u00a0If […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[141,19116,369],"class_list":["post-61773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-climate-change","tag-climate-tipping-points","tag-global-warming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61773"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61774,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61773\/revisions\/61774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}