New York

Global temperatures are likely to surge to record levels in the next five years, fuelled by heat-trapping greenhouse gases and a naturally occurring El Niño weather pattern, according to a new update issued by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on Wednesday.

There is a 66 per cent likelihood that the annual average near-surface global temperature between 2023 and 2027, will be more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels for at least one year.

Warmest year ever

And there is a 98 per cent likelihood that at least one of the next five years, and the five-year period, will be the warmest on record.

“A warming El Niño is expected to develop in the coming months and this will combine with human-induced climate change to push global temperatures into uncharted territory,” he said.

“This will have far-reaching repercussions for health, food security, water management and the environment. We need to be prepared,” said Petteri Taalas.

Some key facts

Typically, El Niño increases global temperatures in the year after it develops, in this case, that means 2024.

There is a 98 per cent chance of at least one in the next five years beating the temperature record set in 2016, when there was an exceptionally strong El Niño.

Arctic warming is disproportionately high. Compared to the 1991-2020 average, the temperature anomaly is predicted to be more than three times as large as the global expected anomaly when considering the next five northern hemisphere extended winters.

Predicted rain patterns for the May to September 2023-2027 average, compared to the 1991-2020 average, suggest increased rainfall in the Sahel, northern Europe, Alaska and northern Siberia, and reduced rainfall for this season over the Amazon and parts of Australia.

Paris Agreement

In addition to increasing global temperatures, human-induced greenhouse gases are leading to more ocean heating and acidification, sea ice and glacier melt, sea level rise and more extreme weather.

The Paris Agreement sets long-term goals to guide all nations to substantially reduce global greenhouse gas emissions to limit the global temperature increase in this century to 2°C while pursuing efforts to limit the increase even further to 1.5°C, to avoid or reduce adverse impacts and related losses and damages.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that climate-related risks for global warming are higher than 1.5 °C but lower than 2 °C.

The new report was released ahead of the World Meteorological Congress (22 May to 2 June) which will discuss how to strengthen weather and climate services to support climate change adaptation.

Priorities for discussion at Congress include the UN’s Early Warnings for All initiative to protect people from increasingly extreme weather and a new Greenhouse Gas Monitoring Infrastructure to inform climate mitigation.

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Courtesy: UN News (Posted on May 17, 2023)

The post Global temperatures set to break records during next 5 years first appeared on Sindh Courier.

Geneva

The relentless advance of climate change brought more drought, flooding and heatwaves to communities around the world last year, compounding threats to people’s lives and livelihoods, the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said.

WMO latest State of the Global Climate report shows that the last eight years were the eight warmest on record, and that sea level rise and ocean warming hit new highs. Record levels of greenhouse gases caused “planetary scale changes on land, in the ocean and in the atmosphere”.

The organization says its report, released ahead of this year’s Mother Earth Day, echoes UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ call for “deeper, faster emissions cuts to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degree Celsius”, as well as “massively scaled-up investments in adaptation and resilience, particularly for the most vulnerable countries and communities who have done the least to cause the crisis”.

WMO Secretary-General, Prof. Petteri Taalas, said that amid rising greenhouse gas emissions and a changing climate, “populations worldwide continue to be gravely impacted by extreme weather and climate events”. He stressed that last year, “continuous drought in East Africa, record breaking rainfall in Pakistan and record-breaking heatwaves in China and Europe affected tens of millions, drove food insecurity, boosted mass migration, and cost billions of dollars in loss and damage.”

WMO highlights the importance of investing in climate monitoring and early warning systems to help mitigate the humanitarian impacts of extreme weather. The report also points out that today, improved technology makes the transition to renewable energy “cheaper and more accessible than ever”.

Warmest years on record

The State of the Global Climate report complements the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment report released a month ago, which includes data up to 2020.

WMO’s new figures show that global temperatures have continued to rise, making the years 2015 to 2022 the eight warmest ever since regular tracking started in 1850. WMO notes that this was despite three consecutive years of a cooling La Niña climate pattern.

WMO says concentrations of the three main greenhouse gases, which trap heat in the atmosphere – carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide – reached record highs in 2021, which is the latest year for which consolidated data is available, and that there are indications of a continued increase in 2022.

Indicators ‘off the charts’

According to the report, “melting of glaciers and sea level rise – which again reached record levels in 2022 – will continue to up to thousands of years”. WMO further highlights that “Antarctic sea ice fell to its lowest extent on record and the melting of some European glaciers was, literally, off the charts”.

Sea level rise, which threatens the existence of coastal communities and sometimes entire countries, has been fuelled not only by melting glaciers and ice caps in Greenland and Antarctica, but also by the expansion of the volume of oceans due to heat. WMO notes that ocean warming has been “particularly high in the past two decades”.

Deadly consequences

The report examines the many socio-economic impacts of extreme weather, which have wreaked havoc in the lives of the most vulnerable around the world. Five consecutive years of drought in East Africa, in conjunction with other factors such as armed conflict, have brought devastating food insecurity to 20 million people across the region.

Extensive flooding in Pakistan caused by severe rainfall in July and August last year killed over 1,700 people, while some 33 million were affected. WMO highlights that total damage and economic losses were assessed at $30 billion, and that by October 2022, around 8 million people had been internally displaced by the floods.

The report also notes that in addition to putting scores of people on the move, throughout the year, hazardous climate and weather-related events “worsened conditions” for many of the 95 million people already living in displacement.

Threat to ecosystems

Environmental impacts of climate change are another focus of the report, which highlights a shift in recurring events in nature, “such as when trees blossom, or birds migrate”. The flowering of cherry trees in Japan has been tracked since the ninth century, and in 2021 the date of the event was the earliest recorded in 1,200 years.

As a result of such shifts, entire ecosystems can be upended. WMO notes that spring arrival times of over a hundred European migratory bird species over five decades “show increasing levels of mismatch to other spring events”, such as the moment when trees produce leaves and insects take flight, which are important for bird survival.

The report says these mismatches “are likely to have contributed to population decline in some migrant species, particularly those wintering in sub-Saharan Africa”, and to the ongoing destruction of biodiversity.

Ending the ‘war on nature’

In his message on Earth Day, UN chief Mr. Guterres warned that “biodiversity is collapsing as one million species teeter on the brink of extinction”, and called on the world to end its “relentless and senseless wars on nature”, insisting that “we have the tools, the knowledge, and the solutions” to address climate change.

Last month, Mr. Guterres convened an Advisory Panel of top UN agency officials, private sector and civil society leaders, to help fast track a global initiative aiming to protect all countries through life-saving early warning systems by 2027. Stepped up coordinated action was announced, initially in 30 countries particularly vulnerable to extreme weather, including Small Island Developing States and Least Developed Countries.

Early Warnings for All

WMO Secretary-General Prof. Petteri Taalas said on Friday that some one hundred countries currently do not have adequate weather services in place, and that the UN Early Warnings for All Initiative “aims to fill the existing capacity gap to ensure that every person on earth is covered by early warning services”.

Mr. Taalas explained that “achieving this ambitious task requires improvement of observation networks, investments in early warning, hydrological and climate service capacities.” He also stressed the effectiveness of collaboration among UN agencies in addressing humanitarian impacts of climate events, especially in reducing mortality and economic losses.

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Courtesy: UN News (Posted on April 21, 2023)

The post Human, economic, environmental toll of climate change on the rise first appeared on Sindh Courier.