The Last 7 Years Were The Warmest On Record

Experts are warning Earth is reaching a 'critical threshold' after new figures revealed just how hot it has been recently.

You aren't alone in thinking it's been fairly toasty over the past decade and there are now statistics to back you up.

Sure, there have been devastating cold snaps around the world and some winters have been pretty punchy, however there's no denying that it's been getting hotter in general.

In fact, the previous seven years have been the hottest on record.

The Copernicus Climate Change Service said 2021 was the fifth-warmest year they have ever seen in their data and there were even record-breaking days in some regions.

Canada saw their summer records smashed by several degrees.

A bit further south, wildfires in the United States raged during July and August, which led to numerous deaths and loads of damage.

The EU satellite system's director, Carlo Buontempo, explained: "These events are a stark reminder of the need to change our ways, take decisive and effective steps toward a sustainable society and work towards reducing net carbon emissions."

Obviously there will be some people who will point out that last year registered fifth on the leaderboard and how that could mean it's not getting hotter year-on-year.

However, Copernicus Climate Change Service senior scientist Freja Vamborg said (via CNN) that this data points to a growing concern about where the planet is heading.

"The really important thing is to not get hung up on the ranking of one particular year but rather kind of see the bigger picture of ever-warming temperatures, and that ever-warming doesn't mean every year will be warmer than the next.

"But that was what we've seen so far with every decade warmer than the next - and this is quite likely to continue."

The consistent warming of the planet is concerning experts as we get dangerously close to the threshold organised back in 2015.

World leaders agreed that Earth shouldn't be more than 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels. They set a goal of staying below 1.5 degrees C and we're reportedly now at 1.1 degrees C.

Some people might think that means we're way off the mark, but Kim Cobb, director of the Global Change Program at the Georgia Institute of Technology, says it's closer than you think.

"It is very fair to say that 1.1 degrees Celsius is conservative, because the last half of the last decade has been warmer than the first half," she told CNN.

"We've just barely crossed the 1 degree threshold for warming, and yet we are reeling from a near-constant series of weather and climate extremes.

"With rare exceptions, these extremes can now be definitively linked to human-caused warming. Going forward, we should expect the frequency and severity of such extremes to increase, exacting an enormous toll on societies around the world."

Climate Action Tracker warned in November last year that we could soon push that number to 2.4 degrees C or higher by the time we hit 2030.

Featured Image Credit: Alamy

Topics: climate change, News