Worse. Its like someone shouting "Fire! We are dead in 5 seconds!". People who are still alive after 5 seconds will correctly figure that this is a liar and possibly also assume that there is no fire at all.
Except, they don't say we are dead in 5 seconds. They say stuff like "The trends reveal new all-time climate-related records and deeply concerning patterns of climate-related disasters." The records being set is pretty objectively true. The "deeply concerning" part involves a little perspective taking, but more/stronger storms, heat waves, etc with impacts on insurance, the power grid and public health are reasonable causes for concern.
They don't say we're all gonna die. They don't say anything about such a short time period as 5 seconds. You're accusing them of being alarmist, but the way you're describing their claims is itself a false and hyperbolic caricature.
It could be more appropiate "Fire! Some may die in 5 seconds". Maybe no one died yet in the 5 seconds mark, or maybe someone die but we attribute that to the heat more than the fire, or just don't count them as there was no one important for us.
But that is no reason to calmly stay there doing nothing while the flames keep rising up.
You know whats the right thing to do? Stay with the facts and avoid hyperbole. "There is a fire in Hall B, I'm leaving the building" and people will follow you with no questions asked.
Its a matter of how you communicate.
I'm tempted to rewrite the abstract in a better wording so people can compare realize what an difference that makes.
> ... "so people can compare realize what an difference that makes."
It makes zero difference, because the people who could change the course of all this aren't listening at all to those who speak up, regardless of what is said or how it's said. They're firmly convinced that money is literally more important than any life (even their own), and no words can or will change their minds. Literal decades of inaction despite growing numbers of actual climate scientists speaking up about the issue has proven this.
The terms are warranted as that's what the data shows: the charts in figure 1 clearly indicate that we are in 'uncharted territory'.
Also as one of the charts 'may indicate a tipping point [into a new fire regime]', it seems justified to say we ran out of time to do something about it.
The charts don't really show that though, because the first 4 are 30 year series and the "2023" in the legend is a hint that Humanity has some seriously long charts behind us. These charts tell us, at most, that we're in a century-long uptrend. I wouldn't be surprised if we were in uncharted territory, but you'd need more data than they display.
The wildfire graph is a long way from normal, but wildfires are ultimately a manageable thing. We're going to have an easier time dealing with wildfires now than we would in earlier eras. Tragedy for the people involved in one, obviously, but mass suffering is an annual event.
