• Space/Science
  • GeekSpeak
  • Mysteries of
    the Multiverse
  • Science Fiction
  • The Comestible Zone
  • Off-Topic
  • Community
  • Flame
  • CurrentEvents

Recent posts

Birthright Citizenship RobVG June 29, 2025 3:34 pm (CurrentEvents)

To be blunt, NASA is now dead RL June 27, 2025 11:56 am (Space/Science)

Musk trashes his own AI after it chose a liberal worldview. RobVG June 23, 2025 9:56 am (CurrentEvents)

Psyche keeps its date with an asteroid BuckGalaxy June 22, 2025 5:21 pm (Space/Science)

Just for the record... ER June 22, 2025 8:59 am (CurrentEvents)

The Three Unknowns After the U.S. Strike on Iran BuckGalaxy June 22, 2025 12:58 am (CurrentEvents)

There are only nine meals between mankind and anarchy. BuckGalaxy June 22, 2025 12:29 am (Flame)

Not ready for prime time BuckGalaxy June 19, 2025 12:18 pm (Space/Science)

hypocrisy ER June 15, 2025 2:30 pm (Flame)

NSIDC offline? ER June 12, 2025 12:19 pm (Space/Science)

Wouldn't it be nice BuckGalaxy June 11, 2025 3:13 pm (Off-Topic)

Thank You Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin BuckGalaxy June 9, 2025 1:35 pm (Off-Topic)

Home » Space/Science

A question of degree... January 24, 2018 6:58 pm RL

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/1/19/16908402/global-warming-2-degrees-climate-change

Signatories to the Paris climate agreement — every country in the world, unless and until the US drops out in 2020 — agreed to what is by now a familiar goal: “holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C.”

How important is that difference, though? How much worse would 2 degrees be than 1.5? Is it worth the extra effort — and it would be a truly heroic effort — to limit temperature rise to that lower target?

It’s been difficult to answer those questions, in part because they are value-laden and incredibly complex, but also due to a paucity of research. While there’s been a great deal of work done on the difference between, say, 2 and 4 degrees warming (which would be catastrophic), there’s been less modeling around 1.5 and no comprehensive comparison of 1.5 and 2.

Happily, a new study in the journal Earth System Dynamics tackles this directly. Over at CarbonBrief, Roz Pidcock has a great rundown on the study that gets into the background and some of the implications.

Best of all, the team at CarbonBrief (which you should really bookmark) has compiled the relevant comparisons in the study into a single clear, aesthetically pleasing graphic:

    Search

    The Control Panel

    • Log in
    • Register