India, Feb. 13 -- Although the average global temperature was warmer than the pre-industrial average by at least 1.5degC last year, it is well known that this breach does not mean that we have failed to meet the Paris Agreement goal of keeping global warming under 1.5degC. This is because the Paris Agreement's goal is for long-term warming. So how long will it take for long-term warming to breach the 1.5degC threshold? Expectedly, the answer to this question depends on how we define long-term. However, a statistical analysis shows that waiting for long-term warming to get close to the threshold might make the breach inevitable.

The Paris Agreement goal is tied to long-term warming because individual years can breach the 1.5degC threshold...