Half A Degree Celsius Of Global Warming Could Heighten Heat Waves, Heavy Rains

A new study indicates that half a degree Celsius of global warming could lead to intense weather. This includes heightened heat waves and heavy rains.

The study was printed in the journal Nature Climate Change. It was led by Carl-Friedrich Schleussner from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and other colleagues. The scientists compared two 20-year periods from 1960 to 1979 and the other period from 1991 to 2010. They discovered that the average global temperatures jumped 0.5°Celsius (0.9°F) and led to extreme weather conditions, according to Phys.org.

The team also stated that the hottest summer temperatures heightened by over 1°C (4.8°F) across a quarter of the land areas of the planet Earth. Meanwhile, the coldest winter temperatures are warmed by more than 2.5°C (10.5°F).

Schleussner said that they must rely on climate models to forecast the future. On the other hand, given that they now have observational evidence around 1°Celsius warming, they could also look at the real-life impacts this warming has brought.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will provide a report for policy makers in September 2018 on the research of the 1.5°Celsius target. It will also indicate the impacts that might be avoided. Eric Fischer, co-author of the study and scientist at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, stated that with the warming the world has already experienced, they can see very clearly that a difference of 0.5°C really does matter.

Meanwhile, another new study published in the Writing in the Journal of Climate suggests that the level of warming was about a third higher at 0.174°Celsius per decade between 1976 and 2016 compared to 0.134°Celsius per decade. The scientists who based their research on the information given by satellites stated that the changes result in the global scale warming, which is bout 30 percent larger than their previous version of the dataset, as Independent noted.