2C cap on global warming won’t save Arctic sea ice: studies
Even if humanity stops global warming in its tracks at two degrees Celsius, long seen as the guardrail for a climate-safe world, Arctic sea ice will still disappear in some years, scientists have warned. Holding the line at 1.5 C (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), however, would make a huge difference, according to two separate studies published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change. In a 2C (3.6F) world, the Arctic Ocean would be ice-free roughly one-in-four years, whereas if warming does not exceed 1.5C, the odds drop to one-in-40, the researchers concluded. "I didn't expect to find that half-a-degree Celsius would make a big difference, but it really does," said Alexandra Jahn, author of one of the studies and an assistant professor at Colorado University in Boulder. The 197-nation Paris climate pact enjoins the world to halt warming at "well under" 2C above mid-19th-century levels, and "pursue efforts" to cap the rise at 1.5C. With one degree of warming so far, Earth has already seen a crescendo of droughts, heatwaves, and storms ramped up by rising seas.
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