Pictured is a graph of historical global sea-surface temperatures across the year from 1982-2024. Yesterday was about 0.3°C warmer than last year. Well, maybe it will go back down since this is an El Niño year? :>
Average global surface air temperature in February 2024 was 1.77°C warmer than the average February from 1850-1900. So maybe we can retire those 1.5°C warming goals now?
However, the IPCC reports that global temperatures have only risen by 1.1°C. This is because they use decade-long averages. Indeed, it is completely possible that 2025 will be cooler than 2024, but crop failures don’t care much for averages. And if global warming has accelerated, the IPCC’s method will be a decade late to realizing it. Not that they can actually do anything about it…
Oh yeah that’s the fun of dealing with a hypercomplex system. It should help with rewilding efforts but those won’t show results for awhile, assuming they’re followed through on.
To temper the bleakness a bit, it also means that with the right interventions it would be possible to have similarly drastic positive results.