by Daniel Brouse
October 30, 2024
A recent study has verified our thesis on accelerating climate change, aligning closely with the extreme conditions now affecting our area. In 2023, nearly half (48%) of the Earth’s land area experienced at least one month of extreme drought, a sharp increase from the 1980s’ average of just 15%. Notably, these droughts are often followed by extreme rainfall, a pattern identified as compound drought-extreme precipitation events (CDEPs), which are both highly destructive and increasingly common. The study highlights that these events, already on the rise, are expected to intensify as climate change progresses, with rising temperatures contributing to their frequency and severity. Given that our region is currently facing its worst drought on record, it’s reasonable to expect these figures may be climbing even faster than in previous years, emphasizing the urgent need for climate resilience planning.
Sidd and I first formulated the hypothesis of non-linear climate change acceleration in the 1990s. By the early 2000s, this concept evolved into a widely recognized and accepted aspect of climate science. Our work has tracked a notable decrease in the “doubling time” of climate impacts—the period over which the intensity of climate effects doubles. Initially, this doubling time was about 100 years, but it shortened to 10 years and more recently to only 2 years. This rapid acceleration implies that the impacts we experience today are twice as severe as those two years ago, and in two more years, these effects could quadruple.
Disturbingly, this trend does not appear to be an outlier. Recent record-breaking climate events—occurring even during typically cooler La Niña phases—indicate that the acceleration is likely here to stay. If this trajectory continues, it could result in far more devastating impacts than previous models suggested. Our updated climate model, now integrating complex social-ecological factors, shows that global temperatures could rise by up to 9°C within this century — far beyond previous predictions of a 4°C rise over the next thousand years. This kind of warming could bring us dangerously close to the “wet-bulb” threshold, where heat and humidity exceed the human body’s ability to cool itself, leading to fatal consequences.