Yves here. While climate change skeptics might try tired “a single robin does not make a spring” sort of arguments, we’ve seen an awful lot of robins. The latest could audition for a lead role in a horror movie.
By Thomas Neuburger. Originally published in God’s Spies
It couldn’t happen to a nicer planet. Too bad it’s happening to ours.
From the Copernicus project, the European Union’s Earth observation component of their space program, comes what should be momentous news:
Global-mean surface air temperatures for the first days of June 2023 were the highest in the ERA5 data record for early June by a substantial margin, following a May during which sea-surface temperatures were at unprecedented levels for the time of year. Also in May, the World Meteorological Organization published a report highlighting 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. So, did we in fact witness a rise in the global-mean temperature to over 1.5⁰C above the 1850-1900 level in early June? Let’s take a closer look at what the ERA5 figures tell us, and how they are calculated.
ERA5 is a product of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). ERA5 is their 5th-generation re-analysis tool. Not a small deal at all.
I bolded the important bits. The answer is to their question is yes., as you see from text below and the chart above:
Exceeding 1.5⁰C has typically occurred in the boreal winter and early spring, most notably in February and March 2016. This [February through April] is the time of year when the rise in temperature since 1850-1900 has been largest. … Conversely, the temperature limit is generally further from being exceeded in boreal summer. The warm period at the beginning of June 2023 is an exception.
Which means, if things are bad in June, they won’t be getting better over time.
“The world has just experienced its warmest early June on record, following a month of May that was less than 0.1°C cooler than the warmest May on record,” said Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) Deputy Director Samantha Burgess.
One by one they fall, these thresholds, these targets, these walls.
Their caveat is cold comfort:
[I]t remains to be seen how often, for how long and by how much the limit is exceeded in the coming twelve months or so, as the current El Niño completes its cycle.
We know the descent is inevitable, because even now, no one from Biden to BP to Exxon to Charles G. Koch is putting a stop to their own relentless march. “Energy independence” is still the word of the day.
As I’ve said before, if elites were planning to save us from global collapse, we’d be watching them do it. We’re watching the opposite. And thus we fall.
