We've already blown past the warming targets set by the Paris climate agreement, study finds
By Rafi Letzter - Staff Writer
Still, it's not too late to make a big difference in the health of Earth and people who live here.
It's already too late to meet the warming limit of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) set by the Paris Agreement in 2015, according to a new study.
Still, all is not lost: It's possible to put off the inevitable for centuries, rather than years or decades, if societies act soon to cut emissions.
In the new study, published Jan. 4 in the journal Nature Climate Change, researchers take a new look at the problem of "committed warming." That term refers to the idea that the warming already underway and pollution already in the atmosphere will have cascading effects that will cause the future to be warmer than the present, even if all greenhouse gas emissions stopped tomorrow. Researchers have long factored committed warming into climate models, but the new paper added a positive feedback loop the researchers call "the pattern effect" — ongoing changes in patterns related to sea-surface temperature and sea ice that may be unstoppable and will erode the planet's ability to cool itself over the long-term. Essentially, as places that are extremely cold right now warm, they'll lose the clouds and sea ice that once reflected heat back into space.
https://www.livescience.com/already-too-late-to-meet-paris-agreement-climate-goals.html
