IPCC: Recent changes in the climate are widespread, rapid, and intensifying, and unprecedented in thousands of years

In 1990, scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) warned that the global mean surface temperature had increased by 0.3 to 0.6 °C over the previous 100 years. The IPCC predicted that global warming would reach 1°C by 2025 and 20 cm of sea-level rise by 2030 (IPCC First Assessment Report, SPM Executive Summary). Thirty years later, the situation is worse than announced.

The recently released IPCC Working Group I Sixth Assessment Report finds that emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities caused approximately 1.1°C of warming since 1850-1900 (SPM A.1.2). Each of the last four decades has been successively warmer than any decade that preceded it since 1850. Compared to its 1901 level, the global mean sea level increased by 20 cm in 2018 already. The average rate of sea-level rise increased to 3.7 mm yr–1 between 2006 and 2018
(SPM A.1.7). More generally, the scientists now see that « Recent changes in the climate are widespread, rapid, and intensifying, and unprecedented in thousands of years. ».