The World Meteorological Organization warns that a hot El Niño developing in the coming months and human-caused climate change will push temperatures to unprecedented highs, reaching new records in the next five years.
Temperatures in the Pacific Ocean warmed due to a strong El Niño in January 2016. Photo: NOAA
Global temperatures are likely to exceed the Paris Agreement threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius within the next five years, according to a United Nations (UN) report. The UN's World Meteorological Organization (WMO) issued the warning in its latest annual assessment. According to the WMO, there is a 66% chance that annual global surface temperatures will rise by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. This would be the first time in human history that such an increase has been recorded.
Scientists warn that temperatures exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius will increase the risk of tipping points, which could trigger irreversible climate change such as the collapse of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice shelves, extreme heat, severe drought, water shortages and extreme weather in large areas of the world.
About 200 countries pledged to limit global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius or less under the 2015 Paris Agreement. Now that limit may be exceeded for the first time, if only temporarily.
The expected warm El Niño event in the coming months will combine with human-caused climate change to push global temperatures to unprecedented highs, according to Petteri Taalas, secretary-general of the WMO. That will have far-reaching consequences for health, food security, water management and the environment.
El Niño occurs when the trade winds (which normally push warm water westward across the Pacific Ocean from South America to Asia) weaken, leaving more warm water in place. This phenomenon has a major impact on climate patterns around the world, making South America wetter and bringing drought to areas like Australia, Indonesia, northern China, and northeastern Brazil. In the United States, El Niño tends to make the north warmer and drier while the south gets wetter because the warm water spreads out and stays close to the sea surface, warming the air above.
The latest WMO report looks at the period from 2023 to 2027. It says there is a 98% chance that a year in that period will be the hottest on record, surpassing 2016's 1.28C rise. The chance of global temperatures exceeding the 1.5C threshold was nearly zero in 2015, 48% in 2022 and 66% in 2023. The researchers say the warming is uneven. The Arctic, for example, will experience three times more temperature variability than the rest of the world, accelerating ice melt and severely impacting climate systems like the North Atlantic jet stream and ocean current, which play a key role in regulating temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere.
Meanwhile, rainfall will decrease in Central America, Australia, Indonesia and the Amazon. Deforestation, climate change and fires have caused the vast rainforests that have not recovered since 2000 to be converted to grasslands.
An Khang (According to Live Science )
Source link
Comment (0)