This year’s UN climate summit – COP29 – is being held during another record-breaking year of high global temperatures, increasing pressure on negotiations aimed at curbing climate change.
The last global scientific consensus on climate change was released in 2021 through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, although scientists say the evidence shows global warming and its impacts are unfolding faster than expected.
Here is some of the latest climate research:
Violation of 1.5C?
Scientists say the world has already reached 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 F) above average pre-industrial temperatures – a critical threshold beyond which there is a risk of irreversible and extreme climate change.
A group of researchers made the suggestion in a study released Monday based on analysis of 2,000 years of atmospheric gases trapped in Antarctic ice cores, which increases understanding of pre-industrial temperature trends.
Scientists typically measure today’s temperatures against a baseline temperature average of 1850–1900. According to that measurement, the world is now about 1.3 C (2.4 F) warmer.
But the study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, says the new data, based on temperature data from the year 13 to 1700, suggests a longer pre-industrial baseline.
Either way, 2024 is sure to be the hottest year on record.
supercharged storm
Not only is ocean warming fueling stronger Atlantic hurricanes, but it is also causing them to intensify more rapidly, for example, going from a Category 1 to a Category 3 hurricane in a matter of hours.
Growing evidence suggests this is also true of other ocean basins.
Hurricane Milton needed only one day to transform from a tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico in October to the Gulf’s second most powerful hurricane on record, devastating the west coast of Florida.
Warmer air can also hold more moisture, helping storms move further and ultimately release more rain. As a result, the storm is also causing flooding in mountain towns like Asheville, North Carolina, which was inundated by Hurricane Helene in September.
deaths due to forest fire
Global warming is drying up waterways and stripping moisture from forests, creating conditions for larger and hotter wildfires from the U.S. West and Canada to Southern Europe and the Russian Far East, producing more harmful smoke Used to be.
Research published last month in Nature Climate Change calculated that about 13% of deaths linked to toxic wildfire smoke during the 2010s, about 12,000 deaths, could be due to climate effects on wildfires.
coral bleaching
As the world is in the grip of the fourth mass coral bleaching event – the largest on record – scientists fear the world’s reefs have passed the point of no return.
Scientists will study bleached rocks from Australia to Brazil for signs of recovery over the next few years as temperatures drop.
amazon alarm
Brazil’s Amazon is in the grip of its worst and most widespread drought since records began in the 1950s. River levels reached their lowest ever level this year, while fires ravaged rainforests.
That adds to concerns over scientific findings earlier this year that between 10% and 47% of the Amazon could face the combined stress of heat and drought, as well as other threats, by climate change by 2050.
This could push the Amazon beyond a tipping point, the forest would no longer be able to produce enough moisture to quench its own trees, at which point the ecosystem could transform into degraded forests or sandy savannas.
Forests seem to be struggling globally.
A July study found that forests overall last year failed to absorb as much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as in the past, largely due to the Amazon drought and wildfires in Canada.
This means that record amounts of CO2 entered the atmosphere.
volcanic eruption
Scientists fear that climate change could also promote volcanic eruptions.
In Iceland, volcanoes seem to be responding to rapid glacier retreat. As ice melts, there is less pressure on the Earth’s crust and mantle.
Volcanologists are concerned that this could destabilize the magma reservoir and appear to cause more magma to be generated, increasing pressure underground.
About 245 volcanoes around the world lie under or near ice and may be at risk.
ocean recession
Atlantic warming could hasten the collapse of a major current system that scientists warn is already at risk.
The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), which transports warm water from the tropics to the North Atlantic, has helped keep European winters mild for centuries.
Research in 2018 showed that the AMOC has weakened by about 15% since 1950, while research published in February in the journal Science Advances suggested it may be closer to a severe recession than previously thought.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
