Many people could face unbearable temperatures soon. Temperature anomalies on land in the Northern Hemisphere (red) are spread out much wider and they are more than 0.5°C higher than global land+ocean anomalies (blue). The pale green and grey trends are both long-term trends based on January 1880-August 2020 NOAA data. The short-term red and blue trends, based on January 2013-August 2020 NOAA data, are added to show the potential for a rapid rise. How could temperatures possibly rise this fast? A rapid temperature rise could eventuate by 2026 due to a number of contributing factors: • crossing of the latent heat and methane tipping points • moving toward an El Niño • entering solar cycle 25 • changes in aerosols • feedbacks kicking in more strongly as further tipping points get crossed. Crossing the Latent Heat and Methane Hydrate Tipping Points The image below, updated from an earlier post , shows two such tipping points. The August 2020 ocean temperature anomaly on t...