Featured article:
*Foster, G., & Rahmstorf, S. (2026). Global warming has accelerated significantly. Geophysical Research Letters, 53(5), e2025GL118804. [PDF] [Cited by]
“Recent record-hot years have caused discussion over whether global warming has accelerated. Previous analysis found acceleration (i.e., increase in warming rate) has not yet reached a 95% confidence level, given natural temperature variability. We remove the estimated influence of three main natural variability factors: El Niño, volcanism, and solar variation. The resulting adjusted and thus less “noisy” data show that there has been acceleration with over 98% confidence, with faster warming over the last 10+ years than during any previous decade.
The rise in global temperature has been widely considered to be quite steady for several decades since the 1970s. Recently, however, scientists have started to debate whether global warming has accelerated since then. It is difficult to be sure of that because of natural fluctuations in the warming rate, and so far no statistical significance (meaning 95% certainty) of an acceleration (increase in warming rate) has been demonstrated. In this study we subtract the estimated influence of El Niño events, volcanic eruptions and solar variations from the data, which makes the global temperature curve less variable, and it then shows a statistically significant acceleration of global warming since about the year 2015. Warming proceeding faster is not unexpected by climate models, but it is a cause of concern and shows how insufficient the efforts to slow and eventually stop global warming under the Paris Climate Accord have so far been.
At the present rate, we will exceed the 1.5°C limit of the Paris Climate Accord by 2030.”
Other sources:
Extreme heat: impacts and consequences
Extreme heat in India and Pakistan–and climate change
Race and class and heat in cities
Questions? Please let me know (engelk@grinnell.edu).
