CNN climate correspondent touts study predicting global ‘doom’ and ‘death sentence’ for island nations

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CNN climate correspondent: New study is a ‘death sentence’ for island nations

Bill Weir discusses a new climate study that uses AI to combine models from top scientists.

CNN Chief Climate Correspondent Bill Weir touted a new study that predicted Earth could reach critical global warming levels sooner than expected.

During an appearance on "CNN This Morning," Weir said that the study, which uses artificial intelligence to combine existing scientific models, found that "doom is coming" to the planet faster than previously predicted.

"Where this machine learning differs from the consensus science is that even if everything is done — a certain amount of warming is already built in," he said.

The study also found that even at net-zero carbon emissions, the Earth could still reach 2 degrees Celsius increase before 2060.

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CNN's Bill Weir joins "CNN Newsroom" to discuss a potential gas stove ban. (Screenshot/CNN/CNNNewsroom)

"The Prime Minister of Barbados, that’s a death sentence for island nations. She just said that at the last COP27. [The number 2] was decided on when it was determined that 1.5 degrees, if we stopped warming there, it would obliterate island nations, low-lying nations. So, they moved it to 1.5," he said.

The study estimated that the planet may reach 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming since preindustrial levels within a decade and predicted that temperatures could tip over 2 degrees Celsius by 2060.

Under the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, countries have pledged to limit global warming to below 2 degrees compared to preindustrial levels.

Scientists have said that the chances of extreme weather, such as flooding and wildfires, dramatically increase after temperatures tip over 1.5 degrees of warming.

In this Aug. 25, 2021, file photo the French Fire burns hillsides along Highway 155 in Sequoia National Forest, Calif.   (Noah Berger/AP)

At 2 degrees of warming, there can be irreversible ramifications on the planet’s population, including "chronic water scarcity" for three billion people.

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According to co-author and Stanford Professor Noah Diffenbaugh, the study used machine learning and, more specifically, artificial neural networks on climate models and then utilized observations about temperature throughout history as "independent input" to inform the AI's prediction process.

Diffenbaugh and co-author Elizabeth Barnes ran three different scenarios, which all concluded the world would hit 1.5 degrees of warming between 2033 and 2035, in line with other studies.

But the artificial intelligence broke from previous estimates when predicting a probability of 80% that degrees warming will occur before 2065, even if the world reaches carbon net-zero.

A still image pauses the onslaught of warmer temperatures in NASA and NOAA data summarizing global climate changes. (NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center)

If the planet does not reach net-zero at a reasonable pace, there is a 40% probability that the Earth will cross the 2 degrees threshold before 2050, according to the AI.

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Despite a La Nina, a cooling of the equatorial Pacific that slightly reduces global average temperatures, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration calculates 2022’s global average temperature was 58.55 degrees, ranking sixth hottest on record. NOAA doesn’t include the polar regions because of data concerns, but it soon will.

If the Arctic – which is warming three to four times faster than the rest of the world – and Antarctic are factored in, NOAA said it would be fifth warmest. NASA, which has long factored the Arctic in its global calculations, said 2022 is essentially tied for fifth warmest with 2015. Four other scientific agencies or science groups around the world put the year as either fifth or sixth hottest.