Chester County’s climate change data, along with statistics worldwide, indicate the depth and breadth of this critical issue. Steven Mufson, Chris Mooney, Juliet Eilperin, and John Muyskens reported the bad news for The Washington Post.

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

International leaders agreed in the 2015 Paris Agreement 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.

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, Chester County climate change analysis recorded an average temperature increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius.

This is well above the national average of 1.0.

Still, Chester County has the lowest recorded increase among the collar counties. Delaware County has recorded an increase of 1.6 degrees Celsius, Montgomery County is at 1.7, while Bucks County has already reached the threshold of 2.0.

Read more about extreme climate change in The Washington Post.