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Last year marked one of the three warmest years on record, with the global average temperature being 1.2°C above pre-industrial levels, but the WMO has warned the worst could be yet to come as the chances of the temperature reaching 1.5°C are increasing with time.
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has established 1.5°C as a key tipping point for the Earth’s temperature, beyond which the risks of disasters such as extreme drought, fires, floods and food shortages will increase dramatically.
#NowReading @WMO’s new climate update that shows there is a 40% chance of the annual average global temperature temporarily reaching 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level in at least one of the next five years. https://t.co/n1HytFrByLEarlier this year, the WMO, which is the world’s leading weather and climate organisation, warned that there is a 40% chance the annual average global temperature will reach the threshold in at least one of the next five years.
— IPCC (@IPCC_CH) May 27, 2021
In a statement cited by CNN, Petteri Taalas, the WMO’s secretary-general, stressed the findings are ‘more than just statistics’.
He continued: ‘Increasing temperatures mean more melting ice, higher sea levels, more heatwaves and other extreme weather, and greater impacts on food security, health, the environment and sustainable development.’
The role of the #Amazon as a carbon sink is in decline, according to a new study led by @LucianaGatti5 in @Nature entitledEven if the threshold is not reached in the coming years, the WMO has said there is a 90% chance that at least one year between 2021 and 2025 will become the warmest on record, surpassing the current hottest record established in 2016.
"Amazonia as a carbon source linked to deforestation and climate change"#ClimateActionhttps://t.co/LlT5q7SgcK pic.twitter.com/hJ6Xi7aczZ
— World Meteorological Organization (@WMO) July 20, 2021
The Paris Agreement aims to keep the global temperature increase below 1.5°C, but the world is already two-thirds of the way to the tipping point, with the annual average temperature likely to be at least 1°C warmer than pre-industrial levels in each of the coming five years, according to the WMO.
Taalas described the study as ‘yet another wake-up call’, commenting: ‘We are getting measurably and inexorably closer to the lower target of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. The world needs to fast-track commitments to slash greenhouse gas emissions and achieve carbon neutrality.’
Climate breaks multiple records in 2016, hottest year on record. Global impacts. Extreme and unusual trends continue in 2017 #stateofclimate pic.twitter.com/GvBTtVqiiPGavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City, said that while there is a ‘little bit of up and down in the annual temperatures’, the long-term trends are ‘unrelenting’.
— World Meteorological Organization (@WMO) March 20, 2017
Per Reuters, he added: ‘It seems inevitable that we’re going to cross these boundaries, and that’s because there are delays in the system, there is inertia in the system, and we haven’t really made a big cut to global emissions as yet.’
In order to reach the goal set out in the Paris Agreement, the IPCC reported that global greenhouse gas emissions must reach net zero by 2050.
Links
- Alarming climate change: Earth heads for its tipping point as it could reach +1.5 °C over the next 5 years, WMO finds in the latest study
- IPCC steps up warning on climate tipping points in leaked draft report
- It's getting more likely the world will reach a climate tipping point in the next five years
- Rising global temperatures 'inexorably closer' to climate tipping point, WMO says
- Rising global temperatures 'inexorably closer' to climate tipping point - U.N.
- Tipping points in the climate system - Wikipedia
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