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The IPCC 1.5C Special Report

The 1.5°C report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been a landmark publication helping to inform the need of staying within one of the Paris Agreement thresholds.

Hundreds of scientists around the world contributed to the report, which was compiled in direct response to the Paris Agreement that was adopted at COP21 in 2015, in Paris. This agreement saw countries around the world agree to keep “global temperature rise this century well below 2.0°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5°C.”
 

Recognising that more information was needed on the pathways and impacts of limiting warming to 1.5°C, the IPCC was invited by the United Nations to provide a special report.

The IPCC is recognised by the UK Government as the international authority on climate change. It carries out its work with the help of thousands of climate scientists around the world.

The Met Office played an integral role in the development of the IPCC 1.5°C report including the provision of:

  • Scientific literature with dozens of Met Office authored papers cited in the report, reflecting the influence Met Office Hadley Centre research has internationally;
  • Observational data including global average temperature (HadCRUT4) and climate extremes (HadEX2) to put recent climate change into a long-term context;
  • Climate model projections to provide evidence on the impact of climate change on, for example, temperature extremes, river flows and food production;
  • Numerous reviewers and a Contributing Author to ensure the report reflects the latest available evidence.

To complement the publication of the IPCC 1.5°C special report, the Met Office Hadley Centre produced three briefing notes which explore the following related topics:

  1. Where are we now? What does a 1.5°C world mean and, given that we’ve recently passed 1.0°C, how close are we to exceeding the long-term goal?
  2. What are the challenges of limiting warming to 1.5°C? Achieving a 1.5°C goal will be challenging; so how feasible is it and how might we achieve it?
  3. What impacts can we avoid by limiting warming to 1.5°C? What are the differences between impacts at 1.5 and 2.0°C for heatwaves, flooding and drought? What are the benefits for achieving 1.5°C?

The latest IPCC report - AR6

The IPCC has completed its Sixth Assessment cycle with the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) published in three chapters in 2021 and 2022. The AR6 report provides the latest knowledge on the science of the climate change.

Again, the Met Office has been heavily involved in the production of AR6 with representatives across all three Working Groups (WGs). In total the Met Office had:

  • Two Coordinating Lead Authors in WG1 (The Physical Science Basis) on Chapter 9 (Oceans, Cryosphere and Sea Level) and Chapter ATLAS.
  • Three Lead Authors: one in WG1 Chapter 4 (Future global climate: scenario-based projections and near-term information); one in WG1 Chapter 7 (Earth’s Energy Budget, Climate Feedbacks and Climate Sensitivity); and ine in WG2 (Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability) Chapter 4 (Water)
  • One Review Editor in WG3 (Mitigation) on the Introduction & Framing chapter
 

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