Is Global Warming Speeding Up?

Thanks to climate change, 2023 has shattered heat records, and 2024 is continuing where last year left off. With this devastating heat driving extreme weather - from heatwaves to downpours to wildfires - across the globe, scientists are increasingly asking if global warming could be accelerating. So what does the evidence show? Is the heating up of our planet speeding up? If so, what does this climate change mean for our future? And can we still hit the brakes and halt global warming?

Huge thanks to scientist Andrew Dessler for his feedback! Follow him here:

#ClimateChange #climatecrisis

==MORE INFO==
On acceleration predicted by models vs Hansen vs reality:
Comment on the weirdness of recent temperatures:
Further discussion of “the surge”
Is it the volcano
Further discussion of 2023’s warming:
Recent temperatures:
Discussion of accelerating temperature
Doubt over whether acceleration is underway:
Climate models compared to ongoing warming:

==CREDITS==

Temperature data: IPCC AR6 mean combined with HadCRUT's values for the last couple of years

Historical warming trend and projections from Nasa Goddard
Wildfire footage Henderson Hillls
El Nino clip from NOAAEco farming video from World Economic Forum and Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)
Waorani people from UN Human Rights

[sangitaekka]

In India, we already have a heatwave alert. I don't even have a car and try to keep my carbon footprint low, but guess whose migraines have worsened due to heat? :( Feels hopeless...

[Zankras]

I think we’re about to find out just how resilient global agriculture is to chaotic weather patterns.

[coleorum]

The Keeling Curve is now showing around 426 ppm C02. A year ago it was 422ppm. No sign at all that we are reducing our C02 output.

[mfuson]

I think it is very likely that the removal of Sulphur dioxide from shipping fuel was an inadvertent catalyst to the warming jump.
Even as a layman, looking at the data it seems to me that humanity had its foot on the climate break without realizing it.
When we removed our foot from the break (cleaning up shipping fuel), the climate snapped forward to the level of damage that already existed in our atmosphere, but we had helped to mask that damage unintentionally through the SO2 in the shipping fuel.
Adding SO2 back in would only delay the inevitable and wouldn't reverse the damage. It would be no different than sweeping the dirt under the rug.
As the planet rockets past tipping points, it seems clear to me that our situation is grave. Huge temperature swings from high to low, extreme storms, too much rain, not enough rain, all point to one thing...agriculture collapse. Those of us who garden can already see the weather whiplashing is having a massive impact on crop yields. Plants like stability and our emerging climate is anything but stable. I don't think people realize how interconnected everything is with climate - like a house of cards.
I'm all for constructive dialogue, but I will no longer waste my time debating whether it is happening. I have eyes, and in my 47 years on this world I have seen vast changes in climate conditions, and those changes are most defiantly accelerating.

[peteypunkrock]

Just wrote a paper on deforestation in the tropics. Deforestation and more frequent wildfire events globally create a positive feedback loop that could be accelerating climate change. Reduction in natural sequestration ability has to have an impact on how fast we are heating. I enjoy the videos you make. I am an environmental scientist living in Colorado.

[nighswimming]

Let me put it straight: we reached a stage where cleaning the atmosphere will make it worse. Well done humanity..

[ScottRiddleArtist]

So I have been a gardener since I was about six years old. Lol the old woman next-door would pay me and teach me to help weed and work in her garden. For years, I kept this relationship and I actually lived off the land while living in a major city for over a decade. Collecting wild materials from the scrub forests around the edge of the city and weaving baskets and turning them into Wildcraft furniture. The thing about having been connected to the land for so many decades every season outside observing plants and trees and insects, etc. Is that I could see the changes happening decades ago. And yes, it is warming faster than telling us. Than they imagined and I told everyone this was going to happen. But not only did I tell people this was going to happen. I’ve started to prepare for it. The future is going to be all about problem-solving and adaptability. I figured out how to make an organic suntan lotion for my plants. How to prepare them and sustain them during Flash, drought and extreme heat. And I even started planting fruit trees and other various edibles that are several zones higher than our actual grow zone. And at winter time, I simply baby them cover them. Because I anticipate the climate warming so quickly. That I don’t want to be left without fruits. So I’ve started planting tropical fruits from South America and Australia. Though technically, we are not, that warm. And so far they’ve survived three winters in a row! You need to learn how to grow. And you need to learn the skills of adaptation.

[brightondude]

“I’m on the edge of my seat” - That was very funny. Thank you for another excellent video. You always manage to be interesting and entertaining about this very important and complicated subject.

[pokemonjodeldodel]

Hi from Austria. It's quite possible that we will get 30degrees on Monday. In April. That's just crazy.

[whalesong]

Thank you for not selling products on your channel. I hate watching a video and seeing an ad for products that are not related or actually contribute to climate change.
Thank you for your video.

[hckirlt]

According to James Hansen, one cause for the acceleration in warming is that in 2020, regulations introduced by the IMO imposed strict limits on the sulfur content of marine fuels. The new rules lowered the maximum percentage of sulfur from 3.5% to 0.5% for all ships operating worldwide. The reduction of sulfur in shipping fuel has seen a 1 watt per square meter increase in solar radiation reaching the Earth's surface. This increase in solar radiation reaching the surface is equivalent to an increase of CO2 in the atmosphere from 420 to 520 vpm (volumes per million).

[lancechapman]

Maybe you are getting there, but Hanson, et al, told us to expect this accelerating heating.

[Timlagor]

Your comment on the differences between +1C _> +1.5C -> +2C rather glosses over the fact that +0.5C -> +1C was that one that was relatively benign and +1.5C is already catastrophic (just taking time to actually deliver since we have so much ice buffering the impact as it melts)

[hg]

To give some missing details:
The IMO decided that from 2020 onwards the sulfur content of marine Diesel and other ship fuels is limited to 0.5%. The limit used to be at 3.5% before that.
As the majority of planet earth is covered by oceans taking away such a lot of a cooling blanket makes a huge difference.

[opinionisopinion]

South and Southeast Asian suffer the heatwave 😢 Global warming is happening and we are scared maybe next year is more hotter

[cabanford]

Sure as hell feels like it up here in Zermatt. Watching the glaciers go from melting to disintegrating over the last 24 years (big diff from the 80s - 90s)

[sebastianhuvenaars]

El Nino, shipping fumes and a moisture spewing volcano combined make for a pretty potent greenhouse kick. Let's hope things will return to being regular apocalyptic in the years to come.

[ward]

Scientists are still not sure how the extreme megadrought summer of 1540 in Europe could happen. There was an 11-month period of little rain across Europe in 1540. There is a 20% chance that this summer was hotter than the summer of 2003 in Europe. Many forests went up in flames. In Germany, there were reports of cracks in the ground so big that people could stick their legs inside them. Multiple rivers and lakes dried up. Over half a million people died from the heat and famine. It truly was a horrific disaster. What confuses scientists is that this took place during the Little Ice Age, a period when Earth overall was much cooler than today. Sometimes terrible natural disasters can still happen regardless of Earth's global temperature. It is a bit terrifying to know that such an extreme summer could happen even when the planet was significantly cooler than it is now. A scary thought is wondering what would happen if the same jet stream pattern that caused the 1540 disaster happened today.

[boogyyou]

people think that 2 degrees warming is not a lot unless they realize eventually that it's the average including day and night

[joseenoel]

Congrats, you're aces! I'm a chick forest technician from Montreal, I majored in Sylviculture and re-wilding the place, they (those in charge) could absolutely care less, good luck!