Global mean surface air temperature exceeds 1.5°C in June. Is climate chaos near?

The United Nations Secretary General António Guterres recently warned: “We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator.” Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions continue to grow, which has resulted in rising temperatures and the planet is fast approaching tipping points that will make climate chaos irreversible. Here’s yet another grim reminder of that. 

The EU-funded Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) implemented by ECMWF has reported that the global mean surface air temperature was more than 1.5-degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels in early June. However, the 1.5-degree C limit established by the Paris Agreement has not yet been surpassed as it was set for changes in twenty- or thirty-year averages, not for brief periods of time such as daily or monthly anomalies.

This isn’t the first time that the global-mean surface temperature was above this level. Though this is a first for a summer month, it has been observed before in the northern hemisphere in winter and spring. According to ECMWF, this threshold was first exceeded in December 2015, and then repeatedly in the northern hemisphere during the winters and springs of 2016 and 2020.

ECMWF also states that as El Niño continues to develop, there is good reason to expect periods in the coming twelve months when the global mean air temperature could exceed pre-industrial levels by more than 1.5⁰C.

Also, in May, a report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) highlighted a 66% likelihood that the annual average global temperature in 2023–2027 would be more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels for at least one year. According to the WMO report mentioned above, there is a 98% likelihood that at least one of the next five years, and the five-year period as a whole, will be the warmest on record. There is also a 32% chance that the five-year mean will exceed the 1.5°C threshold set in the Paris Agreement.

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