Targets for limiting the global temperature to less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels shouldn’t be considered ‘safe’ according to new research from climate change experts at the University of Exeter.
In a comprehensive study of the Last Interglacial, a period of warming some 125,000 years ago, the team found data that suggest sea levels will rise significantly higher than anticipated and that stabilizing global average temperatures at 2˚C above pre-industrial levels may not be considered a ‘safe’ target.
Emission targets will have to be lowered further still.
Their analysis looked at conditions when sediments and ice were laid down during the Last Interglacial, giving them a look at the global conditions as the ice spread.
Temperatures appear to have been more than 5˚C warmer in polar regions while the tropics only warmed marginally, closely resembling conditions today. With temperatures only 1.9˚C warmer compared to preindustrial temperatures, it resulted in global sea levels growing to 6.6 to 9.4 metres higher than today, with a rate of rise of somewhere between 60 to 90 centimetres per decade.
Kind of gives one the feeling we are sitting ducks, given our complacence and total lack of preparedness.
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