Anjali Sharma
GG News Bureau
UNITED NATIONS, 18th May. World Meteorological Organization on Wednesday issued a new update stated 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.
It said that there is 66 percent likelihood that the annual average near-surface global temperature between 2023 and 2027 will be over 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels for at least one year.
The report stated there is 98 percent likelihood that at least one of the next five years, and the five-year period, will be the warmest on record.
Petteri Taalas said “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,”.
“This will have far-reaching repercussions for health, food security, water management and the environment. We need to be prepared,” said Petteri Taalas.
El Niño increases global temperatures in the year after it develops, in this case, that means 2024, WMO noted.
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.
The agency said 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.
The new update said that 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.
The 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.
It concluded that 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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