Here is how bad it is: In December 2015, 196 countries arrived at an agreement—the Paris Agreement—to hold down rising global average temperatures to “well below 2 degrees C above pre-industrial levels,” while “pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5C.”

The year 2024 was the hottest on record globally, averaging 1.55C above pre-industrial times. Does that indicate the world has failed to limit temperature increase to 1.5C? Does that mean we are in for a long, high and brutal heat? 

Yes, say two independent studies—one Canadian and the other German—both published on February 10 in Nature Climate Change. They show we have reached a period of plus 1.5C. Without changes in policies, global warming will rise further, and we will exceed 1.5C.

Global temperatures fluctuate from year to year, and a spike above 1.5C in one year doesn’t indicate that the world has failed to limit temperature rise to below 1.5C. Still, the two studies, in their analysis, conclude earth has already entered a prolonged, intensified state of warming.

What does the paper from Canada say:

Alex J. Cannon, research scientist with the climate research division of Environment and Climate Change, Canada, is the paper’s sole author.

Cannon’s paper examines the timing of when the long‐term—over a period of 20 years—Paris Agreement target of 1.5C is breached. By analysing climate model simulations, he shows a sustained period of months above 1.5C—as we saw in the 12 months leading to July 2024—is a strong indicator that the underlying 20‐year average has already crossed the threshold.

The caveat, he says, here is that this depends on whether models have fully captured all the drivers of recent warming. As one example, recent reductions in aerosol emissions, for example due to changes in shipping fuel regulations, are not incorporated into the climate model simulations.

This suggests that when we see an extended period of 1.5C temperatures, it may be a symptom that we’ve already passed the Paris Agreement threshold

Cannon tells Hot Rock that recent observational records, with numerous months—more than a year in some datasets—above 1.5C, suggest “that we are on the verge of—or may have already entered—long-term warming that exceeds the Paris Agreement threshold.”

In his analysis, Cannon focuses on the sustained nature of 12 consecutive warm months. He says results consistently show that in most simulated scenarios, the 20-year average—representing long-term climate change—is breached either before or nearly at the same time as the 12-month period.

“This suggests that when we see an extended period of 1.5C temperatures, it may be a symptom that we’ve already passed the Paris Agreement threshold.”

What does the paper from Germany say:

This study uses the occurrence of a single warm year as its metric and looks for clues in warm periods of history.

Looking into past warming levels, the researchers found that a single year exceeding 0.6C, 0.7C, 0.8C, 0.9C and 1.0C global warming thresholds have fallen within the first 20-year period in which average temperature reached the same thresholds. They found the same behaviour for the 1.5C global warming level, which means that the first year above 1.5C in 2024 signals that we have most probably already entered a 20-year period that will reach 1.5C of average global warming, Emanuele Bevacqua, lead author of the paper from Germany, says.

“Entering a window at 1.5C average warming means entering the same window used by scientists to project the impacts of a 1.5C warmer world. Thus, our results warn that we are most probably in a period where the impacts of a 1.5C world will start to emerge,” Bevacqua tells Hot Rock. He is a climate scientist at the Department of Compound Environmental Risks (CER), Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research–UFZ, Leipzig, Germany.

Bevacqua further says that based on climate models, observations, and idealised experiments, “we show that unless stringent climate mitigation is implemented, the first year above 1.5°C in 2024 signals that it is highly probable that Earth has already entered the 20-year period that will reach the 1.5C Paris Agreement limit.”

He warns that current policies heighten the risk of exceeding 1.5C and even 2C. The higher the temperature, the higher the risk of extreme events and associated impacts. “A year above 1.5C is a call to action, not the time for despair,” Bevacqua tells Hot Rock.

Both approaches in the papers are complementary and converge on the conclusion that short-term rise in temperatures are not random anomalies but symptomatic of a persistent warming trend.

As Cannon says, “the slight differences in our methodologies underline that while the estimates of the exact timing of exceedance might vary slightly depending on the metric used, the overall message is the same: without urgent mitigation, the Paris Agreement target is effectively slipping away.”

If this is not bad enough, James Hansen, known as the father of global warming, in his February 3 article published in the journal Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, says warming will escalate above 2C. Every fraction of a degree comes with untold suffering, unimaginable hardship.

All the papers talk about global averages but none of us live in average. The mind is global; body is local. In our neck of the woods, our streets and homes, at different times, the half degree or a fraction of it can translate into more degrees, long and lethal.

India’s 2023 February was the hottest in 122 years. As per IMD monthly summary, the average maximum, average minimum and mean temperature for the country as a whole in February 2023 were 29.66C, 16.37C and 23.01C respectively, against the normal of 27.80C, 15.49C and 21.65C, based on the period 1981-2010. Thus, the average maximum temperature, average minimum temperature and mean temperature are above normal by 1.86C, 0.87C and 1.36C respectively for the country as a whole. In some places, temperatures climbed by 2C and even 4C. February 2024 temperatures too were above normal.

As per the February 14, 2025 report from IMD, day temperatures continued to be appreciably above normal to markedly above normal by 3C to 6C at many places over central & east India; at isolated places over the western Himalayan region & northern parts of peninsular India; above normal (1C to 3C) at most places over northwest & northeast India.

The rise in global temperature is due to emissions from burning fossil fuels. Most countries have not made serious attempts to reduce CO2 emissions. The USA has pulled out of the Paris agreement. Since it is the largest cumulative emitter of CO2 this is not good,  Professor J. Srinivasan tells Hot Rock. He is the Distinguished Scientist at Divecha Centre for Climate Change, Indian Institute of Change, Bengaluru.

“India will face more dry and humid heat waves, more glacial lake outburst floods—similar to the one in Sikkim in October 2023—and more intense cyclones. We need to learn to adapt to these changes until the world decides to rapidly reduce CO2 emissions.”

If mid-February feels like early April, well, it may be a prelude to a period that will be end-times bad