Link: https://grist.org/climate-energy/world-heating-faster-climate-tipping-points/

A recent study published in Geophysical Research Letters claims that warming has accelerated rapidly over the past decade, with temperatures rising almost twice as fast as they did between 1970 and 2015. The study echoes the findings of a report published last year, authored by the scientist James Hansen, who famously testified about the dangers of global warming in front of the US Congress in 1988. Should warming continue on this trajectory, the latest study says, the planet could cross the 1.5 degree threshold before 2030.

The authors arrived at this conclusion after isolating the “noise” from the climate system — controlling for the El Niño weather pattern, which warms the earth, as well as for volcanic eruptions and solar flares. What they found was that while the Earth warmed by 0.2 degrees each decade between 1970 and 2015, it has warmed by 0.35 degrees in the decade since — a 75 percent spike.

This puts us on a collision course with the climate’s tipping points, said Stefan Rahmstorf, an author of the study and head of Earth system analysis at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, he said, “has concluded that the risk of crossing such tipping points increases from moderate to high between 1.5 and 2.5 degrees of warming. So we are basically moving faster into high risk territory now.”

Theres quite a sad pattern to recognize. Whenever an Article asks if climate change is taking place faster than we thought or if its getting worse than we thought, the answer is always yes.