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Global warming will happen faster than we think

Three trends will combine to hasten it, warn Yangyang Xu, Veerabhadran Ramanathan and David G. Victor.
  1. Yangyang Xu

    1. Yangyang Xu is an assistant professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA.

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  2. Veerabhadran Ramanathan

    1. Veerabhadran Ramanathan is professor of atmospheric and climate sciences at the University of California, San Diego, USA.

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  3. David G. Victor

    1. David G. Victor is adjunct professor of climate at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, USA; professor of international relations at the University of California, San Diego; and co-chair of the Cross-Brookings Initiative on Energy and Climate at the Brookings Institution, Washington DC, USA.

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A home engulfed in fire in California

Devastating wildfires ravaged California last month. Credit: Gene Blevins/Reuters

Prepare for the “new abnormal”. That was what California Governor Jerry Brown told reporters last month, commenting on the deadly wildfires that have plagued the state this year. He’s right. California’s latest crisis builds on years of record-breaking droughts and heatwaves. The rest of the world, too, has had more than its fair share of extreme weather in 2018. The Lancet Countdown on health and climate change announced last week that 157 million more people were exposed to heatwave events in 2017, compared with 2000.

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Nature 564, 30-32 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-07586-5

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