Signal Three-year average warming now above the Paris 1.5°C level

Summary

The report states that, measured as a three-year average, global warming has already passed the 1.5 degree threshold agreed under the Paris Agreement. Those three years were the warmest ever recorded, and the report sees warming as accelerating. The main reasons given for this apparent speed-up are the rapid heating of the polar regions and the melting of ice there. Because sea temperatures have reached record highs, the oceans also play a large part in driving the acceleration. The report observes that widespread harm and losses to nature and people are already occurring, and that the central Paris goal is slipping out of reach. It also stresses that every additional tenth of a degree of warming makes the consequences of climate change more severe.