Illustration by Anthony Watts, base image via slideteam.

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Bullet-Point Summary:

Climate alarmists (and the IPCC) say we need to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial times to avoid disastrous consequences, but data show we have already reached such temperatures.

European temperature data show temperatures began rising about the year 1890. (Note that this was before the large modern rise in CO2 emissions.)

As shown in this Climate at a Glance series, as well as by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, catastrophic predictions of extreme climate change have not come true.

Short Summary:

Climate alarmists warn we must take drastic steps within the next 10 years to keep warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial conditions. They claim that warming beyond that threshold will unleash a crisis of substantially worse extreme weather events and other climate harms. However, Europe possesses the best, longest-running temperature records on the planet, and those temperature records show warming has already exceeded 1.5°C. Nevertheless, alarmists’ catastrophic predictions are not coming true.

Below is the Berkeley Earth average surface temperature record for Europe. Europe is a good location to analyze, because some of the longest continuous temperature records are from Europe. It shows a warming of 1.5°C has already occurred there. Yet catastrophic tipping points have not occurred.

Figure 1. (click to enlarge) Berkeley Earth average European temperature. (http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/regions/europe)

Climate At A Glance is a Project of The Heartland Institute

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