One in two risks of reaching, or even exceeding, the +1.5°C warming threshold within 5 years, such is the finding of the WMO, the World Meteorological Organization, in its latest shock report on the evolution of the climate between 2022 and 2026.
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[EN VIDÉO] The story of global warming in 35 seconds By graphically integrating temperature measurements in almost all the countries of the Globe between 1900 and 2016, this animation shows in a striking way the increase in the number of “temperature anomalies”, therefore deviations from an average. We see that in just over a century, the proportion turns red.
According to a new shocking report from the World Meteorological Organization, a UN body, there is a 50% risk that the rise in temperatures will reach or exceed +1.5°C compared to that of pre-industrial levels. This announcement, made public on Monday, May 9, caused a shock effect in the international scientific community because this risk was estimated at zero in the 2015 report.Paris Agreement had set as an objective the threshold of +2°C of warming not to be exceeded by the end of the century, trying as much as possible to limit it to +1.5°C: these 1.5°C should therefore not be reached by 2100, but perhaps by 2026 according to the WMO!
Marked warming despite the influence of La Niña
In 2021, the rise in temperatures had already reached +1.1°C and some organizations estimate that it has already reached +1.2°C in 2022. This rise occurred while in the past two years , the weather report of much of the world has been influenced by the La Niña climate phenomenon : this cooling of part of the waters of the Pacific generally results in a slight drop in global temperature. We can therefore think that the global rise that has occurred has been mitigated by La Niña. This phenomenon, which occurs in phases of one to three years, will be followed by its hot counterpart, El Nino, probably in the middle of the year or at the end of the year 2023. El Niño will then accentuate the rise in temperatures that is already taking place with climate change. The year 2016, the warmest year ever recorded on a global scale, occurred in a climatic context marked by El Niño. This is why the +1.5°C threshold will probably be reached or exceeded within 5 years, with the conjunction of global warming and the return of El Niño.
Between 2022 and 2026, the accentuation of the extremes
The WMO specifies that the year 2022 promises to be drier than the 1991-2020 normal in southern Europe and in the southwestern United States and Canada. On the other hand, the weather conditions for 2022 are expected to be wetter than average in northern Europe, the Sahel, north-eastern Brazil and Australia (already affected by historic floods). With regard to the next summers of the period 2022-2026, the climate forecasts are moving towards a drought recurrent in the Amazon and excess rainfall in the Sahel, northern Europe, Alaska and northern Siberia. For the next five-year winters, climate models suggest above-average rainfall in the tropics, and lower in the sub-tropics.
The forecasts for the period from 2022 to 2026 oscillate exactly between +1.1 and +1.7°C of global warming. L’anomaly hot temperature should be at least three times higher in Arctic than the anomaly that will be reached over the entire Globe.
A new annual temperature record will certainly be reached
According to the latest analyses, there is a 93% chance that one of the years between 2022 and 2026 will be the hottest on record globally, exceeding the already record levels of 2016. Likewise, the fact that the next five years will be warmer than the past five years is a virtual certainty according to the World Meteorological Organization. Petteri Taalas, Secretary General of WMO, explains that ” 1.5°C is not just another statistic. It is an indicator of the point at which the impacts of climate change will have harmful consequences for humans and the planet. These temperatures will continue to rise as long as we continue to emit greenhouse gas in large quantities. And so our oceans will continue to warm and become more acidsthe glaciers will continue to melt, water level will continue to climb and our weather will be more extreme. Warming upArctic is extremely high compared to the rest of the Globe and what happens in the Arctic affects us all”.
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