Study: Warming already baked in will blow past climate goals

Study: Warming already baked in will blow past climate goals
The Jan. 10, 2009 file photo shows a flock of geese flying past a smokestack at the Jeffery Energy Center coal power plant near Emmitt, Kan. A new study says the amount of global warming already baked into the air because of past carbon pollution is enough to blow past internationally agreed upon climate limits. A study on Monday, Jan. 4, 2021 takes a different look at what's called committed warming that comes from heat-trapping gases staying in the atmosphere for more than a century. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)

The amount of baked-in global warming, from carbon pollution already in the air, is enough to blow past international agreed upon goals to limit climate change, a new study finds.

But it's not game over because, while that amount of warming may be inevitable, it can be delayed for centuries if the world quickly stops emitting extra greenhouse gases from the burning of coal, oil and , the study's authors say.

For decades, scientists have talked about so-called "committed warming" or the increase in future temperature based on past carbon dioxide emissions that stay in the atmosphere for well over a century. It's like the distance a speeding car travels after the brakes are applied.

But Monday's study in the journal apnews.com/hub/climate.

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Citation: Study: Warming already baked in will blow past climate goals (2021, January 5) retrieved 5 July 2024 from https://phys.org/news/2021-01-climate-goals.html
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