What are our chances of making the grade proposed by the Intergovernmental Panel on climate Change (IPPC)? The limit to global warming proposed by the IPPC is 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level. The world is now above 1.05°C and climbing. The latest report by the IPCC calls for elimination of additional greenhouse gases (GHGs), mostly CO2, in our atmosphere by 2060. Or else!
The or else implies a variety of unfortunate climate events will occur as the atmosphere and the oceans warm. We are already experiencing some of the effects with the warming at the 1.05°C level. These include drought; forest fires; flooding; crop failures; deaths from heat exhaustion; melting of glaciers and polar ice; and rising ocean levels, to name a few. Oh, then there’s also the polar vortex plaguing us in wintertime while polar temperatures are significantly warmer than normal.