The year 2024 was the warmest year in recorded history, with the global temperature exceeding the pre-industrial levels by 1.5 °C. This is what the Paris Climate Agreement was supposed to prevent. According to Sergey Gulev, head of the Sea-Air Interaction and Climate Laboratory at the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) and corresponding member of the RAS, the situation is serious but not yet critical. An interview with Mr. Gulev has been published by Scientificrussia.ru.
“There is no need for concern right now: for significant changes to occur, the average temperature increase of 1.5–2 °C has to continue for 15 to 20 years,” he noted. “However, we must take these changes very seriously, understanding that very warm years are going to become more and more frequent.”
The climate scientist pointed out that the Paris Agreement and the latest Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) interpret the global temperature increase in two ways. On the one hand, 2024 was indeed the warmest year in the history of instrumental observations, with the global temperature exceeding the pre-industrial levels by 1.5 °C. On the other hand, for representative metrics one needs to evaluate average values over fairly long periods of time lasting at least 10 or 20 years, he said.
This is why Mr. Gulev believes that it would be wrong to claim the world has already passed the point of no return referenced in Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. “This threshold refers to long-term temperature indicators, not annual ones. The same applies to incorrect interpretations of Arctic ice melting data,” he said. “The IPCC forecasts to which I contributed indicate that the Arctic could experience temporary thawing in the period from 2050 to 2055. This doesn’t mean ice will disappear completely… After 2050, there might be some years when the Arctic will not be covered with ice. But ice will appear again afterwards. The dynamics of ice reduction resemble fluctuations, as does the global temperature increase. For instance, a record minimum ice cover was recorded in September 2012, but this has not happened since, and we cannot predict with accuracy when the next ice minimum will occur,” he concluded.
