Even if GHG emissions subside by 2050, chances that long-term heating will exceed 1.5 degrees are more than 99%: AI-based study

A new research study has utilised the powers of artificial intelligence (AI) to gauge the probability of global warming exceeding tolerable levels by 2050. 

The study, published in Geophysical Research Letters, clearly mentions that even if emission of greenhouse gases completely halts by 2050, the global temperature would still surpass 1.5 degrees Celsius with a 99 per cent probability. 

Furthermore, there is another 50 per cent chance that global warming will breach two degrees Celsius even if humanity meets current goals of rapidly reducing greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by the 2050s. 

“We’ve been seeing accelerating impacts around the world in recent years, from heatwaves and heavy rainfall and other extremes. This study suggests that, even in the best-case scenario, we are very likely to experience conditions that are more severe than what we’ve been dealing with recently,” Noah Diffenbaugh, climate scientist at Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, who co-authored the study, was quoted as saying. 

AI-based study

The researchers trained an AI system to predict how high global temperatures could soar depending on the current pace of decarbonisation.

“When training the AI, the researchers used temperature and greenhouse gas data from vast archives of climate model simulations. To predict future warming, however, they gave the AI the actual historical temperatures as input, along with several widely used scenarios for future greenhouse gas emissions,” the study noted.

As reported by Down To Earth in multiple instances this year, 2024 is set to overtake  2023 as Earth’s hottest year on record, with global average temperatures expected to exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial baseline.

“The study adds to a growing body of research indicating that the world has almost certainly missed its chance to achieve the more ambitious goal of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, in which nearly 200 nations pledged to keep long-term warming ‘well below’ 2 degrees while pursuing efforts to avoid 1.5 degrees,” the study concluded.