On Thursday, 50 leading climate scientists warned that record-high greenhouse gas emissions and decreasing air pollution have accelerated global warming.

“Human-induced warming has been increasing at an unprecedented rate of over 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade,” they said in a peer-reviewed policymaker research.

Over the same period, average yearly emissions reached 54 billion tonnes of CO2 or its equivalent, or 1,700 tonnes per second.

Top scientists warn of record 0.2C per decade warming.

The new data will be presented to world leaders at the crucial COP28 climate meeting in Dubai, where a “Global Stocktake” at the UN negotiations will assess progress toward the 2015 Paris Agreement’s temperature objectives.

The Paris treaty’s 1.5C objective, long seen as a guard rail for a largely climate-safe world, appears to be off the table.

“Even though we are not yet at 1.5C warming, the carbon budget”—the amount of greenhouse gases humans can produce without surpassing that limit—”will likely be exhausted in only a few years,” said lead author Piers Forster, a University of Leeds physics professor.

Since the UN’s climate scientific advisory organization, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), gathered data for its most recent benchmark assessment in 2021, Forster and colleagues, many of whom were key IPCC contributors, say the budget has decreased by half.

Unintended consequences

They stated that emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, and other warming factors from burning fossil fuels must not surpass 250 billion tonnes (Gt) to have a coin-toss probability of keeping below the 1.5C barrier.

At the current emission pace, improving the chances to two-thirds or four-fifths would cut that carbon limit to 150 Gt or 100 Gt, a two- or three-year lifeline.

According to the IPCC, CO2 pollution must be cut by at least 40% by 2030 and eliminated by mid-century to meet Paris temperature objectives.

According to new research, one of the decade’s biggest climate successes has accelerated global warming.

Carbon emissions have slowed as coal, which emits more carbon than oil or gas, is used less to generate power.

However, it has decreased air pollution that protects Earth from the Sun.

Particle pollution from all sources dampens warming by around half a degree Celsius, so cleaner air will allow more heat to reach the planet’s surface in the near run.

The first in a series of periodic evaluations to bridge the gaps between IPCC reports, produced on average every six years since 1988, the new analysis was published in Earth System Science Data.

Killing heat

“An annual update of key indicators of global change is critical in helping the international community and countries to keep the urgency of addressing the climate change crisis at the top of the agenda,” said co-author and scientist Maisa Rojas Corradi, Chile’s environment minister.

The 2021 IPCC report’s co-chair, Valerie Masson-Delmotte, called the fresh data a “wake-up call” ahead of the COP28 session.

“The pace and scale of climate action is not sufficient to limit the escalation of climate related risks,” she warned.

Since 2000, land temperatures have increased dramatically.

“Land average annual maximum temperatures have warmed by more than half a degree Celsius in the last ten years (1.72C above preindustrial conditions) compared to the first decade of the millennium (1.22C),” the study stated.

Recent study suggests that longer and more extreme heat waves will threaten South and Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America in the next decades.