A new analysis by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) finds that the rate of global warming has accelerated since around 2015. After accounting for the influence of natural temperature variability, the researchers identified the first statistically significant evidence that the planet’s long-term warming rate is indeed increasing.

Over the past decade, Earth’s global average temperature has risen by approximately 0.35°C per decade, depending on the dataset used. By comparison, the average rate of warming between 1970 and 2015 was slightly below 0.2°C per decade.

The rate of global warming over the past decade has been higher than in any other decade since 1880, when instrumental temperature records began.

The study does not investigate the specific causes of the observed acceleration. However, climate models show that an increasing rate of warming is fundamentally within the scope of current climate modelling, according to the authors.

“If the warming rate of the past 10 years continues, it would lead to a long-term exceedance of the 1.5° limit of the Paris Agreement before 2030,” says Stefan Rahmstorf, lead author of the study. “How quickly the Earth continues to warm ultimately depends on how rapidly we reduce global CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels to zero.”

Source: Potsdam Institute for climate Impact Research

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