A new analysis from the UK's Met Office has found that the Paris target of 1.5°C above preindustrial levels is at risk as the concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere is likely to increase faster this year than the pace essential for maintaining the 1.5°C.

This rapid increase in CO2 emissions is triggered by fossil fuel burning and land use change with only a small boost from El Niño-related effects, and even if the latter were to be absent, the annual rate of CO2 increase will still hit "the very limits of compatibility with the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's] 1.5°C scenarios," according to the analysis.

During 2024, according to the forecast, the average annual CO2 concentration at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii will reach about 2.84 parts per million (ppm) higher than the 2023 levels, in turn, making it the fourth-largest yearly rate of increase since this dataset began in 1958 with a possibility of bringing the Mauna Loa average to about 423.6 ppm.

In the most recent UN IPCC report, each of the 1.5-degree scenarios urges that the rise in CO2 needs to slow and decrease to zero to limit warming to that level as the projected rate of 2024 will be above one of the three mentioned scenarios even with the El-Niño effects removed, according to the analysis by the Met Office.

There is no need for panic... yet

However, the Met Office's projections can be off target. Back in 2023, they had predicted a growth rate for the CO2 levels, however, the emissions that actually occurred were way smaller.

The El Niño effect, which is a drop in the uptake of carbon in tropical land areas, could vanish more quickly than expected in 2024, lowering the rate of CO2 increase.

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Richard Betts, climate scientist at the UK Met Office and lead author of this year's analysis, stated, "Scenarios that limit warming to 1.5°C have the CO2 rise stopping by the 2040s and slowing to less than 2 ppm per year in the 2020s — but this year's rise of 2.84 ppm is well above that."

"To halt the CO2 rise, we urgently need to phase out fossil fuel burning and stop deforestation," he said, adding that "with about 1.3°C (2.34°F) of warming so far, the globe is currently on track to hit 1.5°C of warming compared to preindustrial levels in about 2030 or just after."

The 1.5-degree target is at a very high risk of being exceeded and triggering climate circles as an "overshoot" before there is a possibility of bringing down again global temperatures later this century.

This is possible with deliberate emissions cuts and technological solutions to target legacy emissions in the atmosphere, such as carbon removal. However, it will not have any beneficial real effect in a year as it is a long-term target. 

Greenland ice cap losing average of 30m tonnes of ice an hour

An earlier study revealed that the Greenland ice cap is losing an average of 30m tonnes of ice an hour due to the climate crisis, which is 20% more than previously assumed.

The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (Amoc), which is an additional source of freshwater pouring into the North Atlantic and triggering a collapse of the ocean currents, according to scientists, is closer now, and this will have severe repercussions on humanity. 

The techniques of measuring the height of the ice sheet or its weight by gravity data are being used in Greenland and have indicated major ice loss from the latter as a result of global heating over the past decades. However, they cannot account for the retreat of glaciers that lie mostly below sea level in the narrow fjords around the island.

At NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the US, Dr. Chad Greene, who led the research said, “The changes around Greenland are tremendous and they’re happening everywhere – almost every glacier has retreated over the past few decades.” Concerned, he added, “It makes sense that if you dump freshwater onto the North Atlantic Ocean, then you certainly get a weakening of the Amoc, though I don’t have an intuition for how much weakening.” 

It is noteworthy that the Amoc is at its weakest in 1,600 years as in 2021, researchers caught warning signs of a near tipping point. This is also expected for a significant part of the Greenland ice sheet itself, which is close to a tipping point of irreversible melting, with ice equivalent to 1-2 meters of sea level rise probably already predicted. A recent study suggested the collapse could happen as soon as 2025 in the worst-case scenario.