World is warming up — and it's happening faster too

Impact on vulnerable regions intensifying, making rare consequences more apparent

- Sachi Kitajima Mulkey, Claire Brown and Mira Rojanasakul

NEW YORK — Summer started barely a week ago, and already the US has been smothered in a record-breaking "heat dome".

Alaska saw its first-ever heat advisory in June. And all of this comes on the heels of 2024, the hottest calendar year in recorded history.

The world is getting hotter, faster. A report published last week found that human-caused global warming is now increasing by 0.27 deg C per decade. That rate was recorded at 0.2 deg C in the 1970s, and has been growing since.

This does not surprise scientists who have been crunching the numbers. For years, measurements have followed predictions that the rate of warming in the atmosphere would speed up. But now, patterns that have been evident in charts and graphs are starting to become a bigger part of people's daily lives.

"Each additional fractional degree of warming brings about a relatively larger increase in atmospheric extremes, like extreme downpours and severe droughts and wildfires," said Dr Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California.

While this aligns with scientific predictions of how climate change can intensify such events, the increase in severity may feel sudden to people who experience them.

"Back when we had lesser levels of warming, that relationship was a little bit less dramatic," Dr Swain said. "There is growing evidence that the most extreme extremes probably will increase faster and to a greater extent than we used to think was the case," he added.

Take rainfall, for example.