The first part of the sixth report of the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, was unveiled this Monday, August 9, 2021. It is not a surprise, human activities are singled out.
Heat wave in the United States, devastating fires and deadly floods in Europe. Natural disasters follow and resemble each other. It is in this context, watered down by the health crisis, that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published, Monday, August 9, the first part of its 6th report on climate change. A first section devoted to climate change linked to greenhouse gas emissions. The finding is alarming.
Irreversible changes
Scientific publications on the subject are numerous and all abound in the direction of an acceleration of global warming. The threshold of + 1,5 ° C (target set by the Paris Agreement) could be reached in 2030, a decade earlier than the most pessimistic scenario envisaged until then. Thus the first part of the IPCC report describes climate change "unprecedented for centuries or even millennia". "The warming to 1,5 ° C and 2 ° C will be surpassed during the 2st century, unless a deep drop in emissions of CO1,5 and other greenhouse gases occurs in the coming decades." The threshold of 2030 ° C could indeed be exceeded as early as 1,09 warns the IPCC. “The global temperature on the Earth's surface was 2011 ° C warmer between 2020 and 1850 than it was between 1900 and 1,59, with a greater increase at the land level (0,88 ° C ) than at ocean level (1901 ° C) ”The numerous consequences of this warming follow. Thus, between 2018 and 20, the sea level rose by 3 centimeters, "faster than in any other century for at least 000 years". In the northern hemisphere, between 2011 and 2020, "the average extent of the Arctic sea ice reached its lowest level since 1850", note the researchers. Antarctica has lost three times as much ice mass since the 2000s and Greenland has lost twice as much. Consequences : The planet will experience an "unprecedented" increase in extreme weather events such as heatwaves or torrential rains, even if the world manages to limit warming to + 1,5 ° C, the report by climate experts warned on Monday. 'UN. Experts say no region of the world will be spared the impact of climate change. In the Overseas Territories, at the forefront of climate change, rising sea levels, the disappearance of corals or even the intensification of meteorological phenomena are some of the very real threats.
Extract of the report
"Some of the changes that have already started, such as the continuous rise in sea level or the acidification of the deep layers of the ocean, are irreversible over hundreds or even thousands of years."
The man behind global warming
“New models, new analyzes and methods (…) allow us to better understand the human influence on a wider range of climatic variables”, explain the experts. In the light of the results: "It is indisputable, it is an established fact, human activities are at the origin of climate change", commented the climatologist and co-chair of the IPCC, Valérie Masson-Delmotte, during a press conference. It is thus "probable" that human influence has contributed to the current pattern of precipitation, "extremely likely" that it is causing "changes observed in the salinity of oceanic waters close to the surface", "very probable" that human activity is also at the origin of the retreat of glaciers since the 1990s, of the melting of sea ice in the Arctic or even "Extremely probable" that human activity is the "main cause" of the warming of the upper layer of the oceans (from 0 to 700 m), decrypts the IPCC.
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