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This year is on track to be one of the three warmest ever on record and could even exceed the record set in 2016, the United Nations said on Wednesday.
The past six years, from 2015 to 2020, are projected to constitute the six hottest years since modern records began in 1850, the UN World Meteorological Organization said in its 2020 interim report on the state of the global climate.
“2020 has unfortunately been another extraordinary year for our climate,” said WMO Secretary General Petteri Taalas.
The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change calls for a cap on global warming well below two degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level (1850-1900), while countries will continue efforts to limit the increase to 1.5 C.
“The mean global temperature in 2020 is projected to be about 1.2 C above the pre-industrial level,” Taalas said.
“There is at least a one in five chance that it will temporarily exceed 1.5 ° C by 2024.”
The WMO said 2020 looked set to be the second hottest year on record, but the difference between the top three is small and the outlook could change once this year’s data sets are completed.
Thus, the years 2015 to 2020 individually “are likely to be the six warmest on record,” according to the report.
Temperature averages over the past five years, and over the past 10-year period, “are also the warmest on record,” he added.
Fires and floods
In 2020, “we saw new extreme temperatures on land, sea and especially in the Arctic,” Taalas said.
“Wildfires consumed vast areas in Australia, Siberia, the west coast of the United States and South America, sending plumes of smoke circumnavigating the world.
“Floods in parts of Africa and Southeast Asia caused massive population displacement and undermined food security for millions.”
Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the main driver of climate change, reached record levels last year and continued to rise in 2020 despite measures to stop the Covid-19 pandemic.
The annual impact of the coronavirus crisis was expected to be a 4.2 to 7.5 percent drop in carbon dioxide emissions.
However, CO2 remains in the atmosphere for centuries, which means that the effect of the pandemic is negligible.
Record hot years often coincide with a strong El Niño effect on Pacific Ocean surface temperatures, as in 2016.
But this year’s cold phase of the opposite La Niña cycle hasn’t been enough to keep this year’s heat in check, raising the question of how hot 2020 could have been without it.
The WMO said that more than 80 percent of the ocean area had experienced at least one marine heat wave so far in 2020.
“Sea level has risen along the altimeter record, but recently sea level has risen at a higher rate due in part to increased melting of the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica,” the report said.
“In the Arctic, the minimum annual sea ice extent was the second lowest on record and record sea ice expanses were observed in July and October.”
Hurricanes, suffocating Siberia
Meanwhile, a record 30 named storms formed over the Atlantic Ocean, depleting the alphabet and forcing a switch to the Greek alphabet for the second time.
They included 13 hurricanes and six major hurricanes, which have maximum sustained winds of at least 178 kilometers (111 miles) per hour.
There were 12 ground storms in the continental United States, beating the previous record of nine set in 1916.
2020 was an exceptionally warm year in most of Russia, especially Siberia. Across Russia, temperatures from January to August were 3.7 C above average, 1.5 C above the previous record set in 2007.
The heat in northern Siberia peaked in late June, when it reached 38 C in Verkhoyansk on June 20, tentatively the highest known temperature anywhere north of the Arctic Circle.
Cuba had its hottest day on April 12, at 39.7 C; Taipei on July 24 at 39.7 C; and Jerusalem on September 4 at 42.7 C.
Hamamatsu equaled Japan’s national record on August 17 with 41.1 C.
The 2020 interim report on the state of the global climate is based on temperature data from January to October.
The final report for 2020 will be published in March 2021. -French Media Agency
