A Dangerous Record: Global Temperatures Surpass 'Tipping Point'

By teleSUR

07 March 16

Scientists believe a temperature rise of more than 2 degrees Celsius will lead to irreversible climate change.

emperatures across the northern hemisphere reached more than 2 degrees Celsius above “normal ranges” at the end of last week for the first time in recorded history, and quite possibly the first time since human civilization began 100,000 years ago.

The milestone was recorded last week, with the heat wave stretching over the weekend.

The rise is significant as all major governments across the world agree that a rise of 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, is the tipping point to temperatures that may become dangerous for humanity.

Experts say that the ongoing El Niño weather phenomenon has played a part in this temporary rising of temperatures, releasing huge quantities of heat stored during the last couple of decades of global warming.

The weather effect, which lasts six to eight months, has unleashed cyclones in the South Pacific ocean, such as the tropical Cyclone Winston that devastated the island of Fiji in February, killing 40 people and damaging much of the country’s infrastructure.

Environmentalist Bill McKibben, writing in the Boston Globe last week, said the recent temperature rise offers a “bizarre glimpse of the future” and noted that temperature records are being smashed each month.

“But the future is clearly coming much faster than science had expected. February, taken as a whole, crushed all the old monthly temperature records, which had been set in … January," he wrote. "January crushed all the old monthly temperature records, which had been set in … December.”

Despite empirical evidence that the Earth’s temperatures are rising, not all politicians have taken note of the issue at hand.

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz criticized global warming “alarmists” last year. “The satellite data demonstrate that there has been no significant warming whatsoever for 17 years," he claimed, falsely.

In 2012, billionaire Donald Trump said on Twitter that global warming “was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”