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The effects of climate change have been visible for a long time now, but the summer of 2023 may represent a watershed moment in the public鈥檚 understanding of humanity鈥檚 impact on the global climate. Extreme weather events struck all summer long, from the Canadian wildfires that cloaked the East Coast of the United States in unhealthful smoke and the catastrophic flooding that submerged the capital of Vermont to the rising temperatures of the ocean in Florida and the stretch of four days in July in which the average global temperature was the hottest ever recorded. To put these terrifying events in perspective, and learn what they may tell us about our climate future, we spoke with Yi Ming and Hanqin Tian, two internationally renowned climate change researchers who last year joined Boston College鈥檚 Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society. Climate change, they told us, is happening now, and it鈥檚 threatening our existence on the planet. We won the lottery, getting to live on this wondrous blue world tucked within the darkness of space, Ming said. If we want to keep it habitable, we鈥檙e going to have to make changes, and soon.

This summer鈥檚 weather was shocking, even for people who have been bracing for the effects of climate change. As researchers who are quite familiar with the climate data, what did you make of these events?

Yi Ming: People, especially climate scientists, have been predicting this stuff for ages, but suddenly seeing things manifesting in this kind of a rapid succession鈥擨 have to confess, even for someone who has been thinking about this stuff for decades, it鈥檚 still quite eye-opening unfolding in front of you. It鈥檚 pretty crazy. One important note is that right now we also have the El Ni帽o condition in the East Pacific. That鈥檚 an abnormal warm condition in the seawater that can last up to several years. Normally that鈥檚 thought of as a part of the natural variation, the fluctuation in the system. So, maybe that鈥檚 one reason why suddenly it鈥檚 getting so bad so quickly.

Hanqin Tian: El Ni帽o impacts places differently. Like in the tropics, they got really high temperatures. And in the middle latitude, like in China, there was a flood. Many people died. In the US, the situation is also getting very serious now. One thing this year that made a lot of news were the wildfires in Canada. These fires are getting more and more frequent, and more and more evidence shows they are linked to climate and warming.听

In 2015, at the UN鈥檚 annual Climate Change Conference in Paris, approximately two hundred countries agreed to a goal of limiting the increase in the mean global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The Paris Accords was hailed as a landmark achievement at the time, but what are your thoughts on it seven years later?听

Yi Ming: One thing that is pretty clear is that the 1.5-degree goal laid out by the United Nations is probably not attainable, because we鈥檙e breaking 1.5 degrees already, as we speak. It鈥檚 always been my personal view that it would be very hard to hit that goal. Obviously, at the end of the day, whatever prediction we have of trending temperatures has to be supported by the empirical evidence. But it鈥檚 pretty clear what鈥檚 going on. We鈥檙e already there.

That鈥檚 pretty scary, considering the goal was only set in 2015. What do we need to do?

Hanqin Tian: Communication with the public, I feel, is very important鈥攈ow this could be serious for your daily life, and more so in the future. Some may still doubt the science, but the UN鈥檚 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is made up of more than five thousand scientists, and they have provided evidence that climate change is real. I fear that, even after this year鈥檚 high temperatures, people will continue business as usual, and continue the emission of greenhouse gases. And that high temperatures and extreme weather will become the new normal.听

Yi Ming: A lot of the warming is built into the system already, so it鈥檚 very hard to reverse the trend quickly because of the built-in inertia of the climate system. It takes a while to warm up the ocean, but it will take a while to cool it down. So we have to be ready for what鈥檚 to come.

Hanqin Tian: The food security issue of climate change is a big topic. As temperatures increase, you have the process of what鈥檚 known as evapotranspiration. Normally, when rain falls and evaporates, some portion of the water goes back to the atmosphere through the evapotranspiration process. But if evapotranspiration is too high, then the soil gets really dry. So plants and crops will not be able to grow. Large portions of Africa will experience this kind of drought in a very serious way. Climate change also involves extreme climate events. One year it鈥檚 very dry. Another year, there鈥檚 flooding. How can people adapt to this kind of change? In some regions, like northern China, they want more people to grow a rice crop. But the problem is that this area could be warm early in some years, and then other years it could still be cool, and that year-to-year variation could affect crop production, making it unstable. New technology developments could genetically improve the rice, so it could adapt to temperature change and drought, but it would take probably four to five years to make that change. But by that time, the climate will probably already have changed again. That鈥檚 really challenging鈥攖echnology cannot catch up with climate change.听