Extreme climate change is already happening in America and Delaware County is among the counties that are feeling the effects of rising temperatures, write Steven Mufson, Chris Mooney, Juliet Eilperin, and John Muyskens for The Washington Post.

In the last two decades, two degrees Celsius has emerged as a critical threshold for global warming.

International leaders agreed in the 2015 Paris accord that the world should act urgently to keep the average temperature increases of the Earth “well below” two degrees Celsius by the year 2100 to circumvent a number of catastrophic changes.

The nation’s hot spots will get worse, absent a global plan to slash emissions of greenhouse gases.

However, since global warming does not heat the world evenly, there are many areas in America that have already reached that threshold or are getting near.

From 1895 to 2018, Delaware County recorded an average temperature increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius. This is well above the national average of 1.0 degrees Celsius.

Still, Delaware County has the second-lowest recorded increase among the collar counties. Chester County has recorded an increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius, Montgomery County is at 1.7 degrees Celsius, while Bucks County has already reached the threshold of 2.0 degrees Celsius.

 Read more about extreme climate change in The Washington Post.

Here’s an analysis from a German public broadcasting station of the just-released IPCC global climate report.