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Environment & Climate vocabulary · Climate Change and Climate Science

Pre-industrial levels

Meaning in environment & climate, with examples

/ˌpriːɪnˈdʌstriəl ˈlevəlz/phraseCommon term

In environment & climate, pre-industrial levels means: The conditions before large-scale industry began, usually the period 1850–1900, used as the reference point for measuring global warming and CO2 concentrations.

In Turkish: sanayi öncesi seviyeler, sanayi devrimi öncesi dönem

How it is used

Almost always used in the phrase 'above pre-industrial levels': warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. People also say 'compared with pre-industrial times'. Scientists use 1850–1900 because that is when reliable global temperature records begin.

Example sentences

  1. The Paris Agreement aims to limit warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

  2. Methane concentrations are now more than two and a half times pre-industrial levels.

Common collocations

  • above pre-industrial levels
  • compared with pre-industrial times
  • pre-industrial baseline
  • global warmingThe rise in the Earth's average surface temperature since the late 1800s, caused mainly by greenhouse gases released by human activities.
  • Paris AgreementThe international climate treaty adopted in 2015 under the UN climate convention, in which countries agreed to keep global warming well below 2°C and to try to limit it to 1.5°C.
  • IPCCShort for Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: the UN body that assesses and summarizes the science on climate change, its impacts and possible responses.
  • baselineThe starting conditions or measurements against which later changes are compared, such as the state of the environment before a project or a company's emissions in a base year.

More terms: Climate Change and Climate Science

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