The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in its Paris Agreement pledged to try to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Updated data from the United Kingdom’s Met Office shows that the world is already fast approaching that threshold.
According to the data, for all but one of the last 12 months the average global temperature was more than 1 degree above pre-industrial levels. February and March 2016 were the warmest, at 1.35 degrees above average.
“From the perspective of my research I would say the 1.5C goal now looks impossible or at the very least, a very, very difficult task. We should be under no illusions about the task we face,” Chris Field, co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change working group on adaptation to climate change, told The Guardian.
An animation demonstrating the increasing temperature has been released, along with updated raw data.
