The latest forecasts from the World Meteorological Organization show that there is one 80 percent chance of that the world will see global annual average temperatures temporarily rise above 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels for at least one of the next five years, a new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warns.
“WMO is sounding the alarm we will increasingly temporarily exceed the 1.5°C level. We have already temporarily surpassed this level for individual months – and indeed as averaged over the most recent twelve-month period,” said WMO Deputy Secretary General Ko Barrett.
However, she underlined that temporary exceedances do not mean that the 1.5 °C target set in the Paris Agreement is permanently lost because it refers to long-term warming over decades.
WMO/Edward-Ryu
The global average surface temperature for each year between 2024 and 2028 is forecast to be between 1.1°C and 1.9°C higher than the 1850-1900 baseline.
There is a 47 percent chance that global temperatures, averaged over the entire five-year period 2024-2028, will be higher than 1.5°C above pre-industrial times, says the WMO Global Annual to Ten Year Update – compared to last year’s report for the period 2023-2027, it was 32 percent.
The probability of such temperature spikes – currently at 80 percent – has increased steadily since 2015, when that probability was close to zero. For the years between 2017 and 2021, there was a 20 percent chance of exceeding the limit, and between 2023 and 2027 this chance rose to 66 percent.
Far away
“Behind these statistics lies the grim reality that we are far from achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement,” Ms Barrett said.
She urged governments to do more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or face an ever-increasing price in terms of trillions of dollars in economic costs, millions of lives affected by more extreme weather events and extensive damage to the environment and the biodiversity, should be paid for. .
Below the Paris Agreementcountries agreed to keep long-term average surface temperatures well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to work to limit them to 1.5°C by the end of this century. The scientific community has repeatedly warned of a warming of more than At a temperature of 1.5°C, the consequences of climate change and extreme weather events threaten to become much more serious and every fraction of a degree of warming matters.
UN photo/Mark Garden
Devastating consequences
Even with current global warming, there are already devastating consequences for the climate, such as increased heat waves, extreme rainfall and drought, reduction of ice caps, sea ice and glaciers; the accelerated rise in sea levels and warming of the oceans.
For example, according to the WMO report, Arctic warming over the next five extended winters – November through March – is projected to be more than three times greater than the 1991-2020 average compared to the 1991-2020 average. the global average temperature.
Forecasts for March 2024-2028 indicate a further decrease in sea ice concentration in the Barents Sea, the Bering Sea and the Sea of Okhotsk.
