This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Climate change is worsening. There's now no chance of holding temperature rise to 1.5°C.
The future will bring worsening floods, glacial melt, megafires and lethal heat. But can we call this the "new normal"? The phrase has become common in discussions about the upheavals and damage stemming from human-caused climate change.
It's human nature to want the future to be predictable: We are creatures of routine. If Earth's climate really were going to settle into a "new normal" at 1.5°C of warming, we would find the idea comforting. Unfortunately, it's not true.
Passing the 1.5°C threshold isn't like stepping from one state into another. Global emissions of greenhouse gases are slowing but have not yet peaked—let alone begun to fall. That means further heat, greater change and more climate uncertainty.
Many different futures are possible after 1.5°C. As Australia's National Climate Risk Assessment spelled out last year, our future looks very different at 2°C. At 2.5°C, it's something else again.
At 3°C, it's unrecognizable. Thinking of any of these futures as a new normal invites a dangerous misunderstanding of future risk. By "normal," we mean usual and expected—a situation following predictable patterns.
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