Climate Change Is in the Details: For Some, the 2.3ºC Rise Is Already Here

A major new climate study has concluded that a doubling of carbon dioxide levels will lead to planetary warming of between 2.3 and 4.5 degrees Celsius, ruling out the lower end of previous estimates. However, discussing climate change as a single global average obscures a wealth of crucial detail. The planet is not warming evenly, and understanding the nuances of climate change at a granular level is critical for formulating an intelligent response.

Building out the world’s most comprehensive agricultural data platform means that Gro is also the world’s most comprehensive platform for environmental data. We took advantage of the more than 25,000 environmental datasets we have in Gro to drill deeper into the details of climate change. 

Our findings were eye-opening, and are shown in the map below. 

Over 80% of countries saw an average temperature increase in the past decade. Six countries saw temperatures rise by at least 2.3º Celsius, implying that in some places, the extremes of climate change are already here.

At the district level, results are even more revealing. 28% of districts worldwide saw an average temperature increase of more than 1.5º C. 12% of districts saw an average temperature increase of over 2.3º C. Some districts experienced even more intense warming of up to 7º C. While the calculations show how temperatures have changed over the past decade, they of course don’t necessarily imply that the trends will continue in future years.

Understanding changes in climate at a granular level, rather than as a single average, will be key to the risk-management strategies of corporates, financial institutions, and governments over the coming years and decades. 

Over the past six months, we have invested in building automated climate indices from our environmental datasets that illuminate climate change in groundbreaking ways. We look forward to making these models and indices accessible and sharing the most interesting insights.

This insight was powered by the Gro platform, which enables better and faster decisions about factors affecting the entire global agricultural ecosystem. Gro organizes over 40,000 datasets from sources around the world into a unified ontology, which allows users to derive valuable insights such as this one. You can explore the data available on Gro with a free account, or please get in touch if you would like to learn more about a specific crop, region, or business issue.