Global warming may be speeding up—scientists say the planet is heating nearly twice as fast as before, putting the 1.5°C limit at risk before 2030.
Global warming has been speeding up since around 2015, according to a new analysis from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). After removing the effects of known natural factors that influence global temperatures, researchers identified a statistically significant increase in the pace of warming for the first time.
During the past decade, global temperatures have risen at an estimated rate of about 0.35°C per decade, depending on the dataset examined. That is a sharp increase compared with the average warming rate of just under 0.2°C per decade recorded between 1970 and 2015. According to the study, the recent decade shows the fastest warming rate observed since instrumental temperature records began in 1880.
“We can now demonstrate a strong and statistically significant acceleration of global warming since around 2015,” says Grant Foster, a US statistics expert and co-author of the study, which was published today in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters.
“We filter out known natural influences in the observational data, so that the ‘noise’ is reduced, making the underlying long-term warming signal more clearly visible,” Foster added.
Removing Natural Climate Fluctuations From Temperature Data
Short-term natural events such as El Niño, volcanic eruptions, and solar cycles can temporarily raise or lower global temperatures, sometimes obscuring changes in the long-term warming trend.
To address this, the researchers analyzed direct measurement data from five widely used global temperature datasets. By adjusting the data to account for these natural influences, the team was able to isolate the long-term warming signal more clearly.
“The adjusted data show an acceleration of global warming since 2015 with a statistical certainty of over 98 percent, consistent across all data sets examined and independent of the analysis method chosen,” explains Stefan Rahmstorf.
Study Focuses on Warming Trend Acceleration
The research specifically examined whether the pace of warming has changed over time, rather than attempting to determine the exact causes behind the shift.
After adjusting the temperature records for El Niño effects and the recent solar maximum, the exceptionally hot years of 2023 and 2024 become slightly cooler in the analysis. Even so, they still rank as the two warmest years since modern temperature measurements began. Across all datasets, the acceleration in warming starts to become visible around 2013 or 2014.
