College Voices
Climate Change: The Damage of 2 Degrees
When it comes to discussing climate change, whether it be in the media, in politics, or from science organizations, there is a specific temperature that tends to pop-up over and over again: 2 degrees Celsius.
Essentially, the planet is predicted to heat up by at least an average of 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, by the end of the century.
This 2 degree threshold was determined by the Paris Agreement in 2016, which, according to the UN, aims to keep a rise in global temperatures “well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius.”
This 2 degree increase, however, is a conservative estimate. One study states that the likely range of global temperature increase by 2100 is between 2 and 4.9 degrees Celsius.
With these projections, it is important to know just how much the earth can change with even an average 1.5 or 2 degree Celsius increase.
These numbers may seem minute, for you can manually change the temperature of your house by 2 degrees with a thermostat in a matter of minutes and hardly notice the change. However, for the earth, these changes can be catastrophic. The planet is a complex system, kind of like the human body.
If your body temperature rose by 3.6 degrees from 98.6 to 102.2 degrees Fahrenheit, the system can’t function properly and you’d reside to your bed. If your body temperature rose by 10 degrees, which is one of the higher estimates of rising global temperatures, you would be hospitalized.
Even the difference between 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius are disastrous. According to Climate Analytics, the 2 degree mark would lead to higher risks for extreme weather, pose as an “existential threat” to coral reefs, and double the occurrence of extreme heat episodes compared to the 1.5 degrees mark.
A 1.5 degree increase would reduce the risks and severities of sea level rise, and reduce risks for food production. All because of a couple marks on a thermostat.
It is also important to note, however, that these 1.5, 2, and even 4.9 degree Celsius marks are averages. Some areas of the world will face a larger increase in warming than others.
One estimate, for example, states that India could experience an average increase in temperature of 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit). The country is also an area already highly concentrated with flood risks and “associated human and material losses.”
The North and South Poles, however, are experiencing warming in the double digits. This past February, data collected by the Danish Meteorological Institute suggested that in areas above 80 degrees north latitude, temperatures were more than 20 degrees warmer than February’s average temperature.
According to the NASA Earth Observatory, even if greenhouse gas emissions were stabilized today, the earth would still continue to warm by about 0.6 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.
With climate change and increasing global temperatures, the world faces rising sea levels, food insecurity, flooding, heat waves, coral bleaching, and more frequent and intense natural disasters. Therefore, as the world argues about this global crisis and attempts to solve the problem, it’s important to understand just how much damage a couple degrees can commit.
By: Ella Koscher
