Asia warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, wreaking a heavy toll on the region's economies: WMO
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NEW DELHI: Asia is currently warming nearly twice as fast as the global average with the 1991–2024 trend almost double that of 1961–1990, fuelling more extreme weather and wreaking a heavy toll on the region's economies and ecosystems, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Monday.
It said that the year 2024 with recording rise of 1.04 degree C of temperature above the 1991–2020 average was the warmest or second warmest year on record with widespread and prolonged heat waves, and flagged the multiple extreme weather events that hit India last year, including rains-linked landslides in Kerala's Wayanad district that killed more than 350 people and lightning that claimed around 1300 lives across various parts of the country.
The WMO's State of the Climate in Asia report noted that many parts of the region experienced extreme heat events in 2024 with several parts of India experiencing 'intense heatwaves', leading to more than 450 deaths across the country.
It also highlighted that 23 out of 24 glaciers in the high-mountain Asia region (centred on the Tibetan Plateau) showed continued mass loss during 2023/2024. 'Reduced winter snowfall and extreme summer heat in the central Himalayas (most of Nepal, Tibet Autonomous Region in China and Sikkim in India) and most of the Tian Shan (the mountain range shared by China, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan) intensified mass loss for most glaciers,' it said.
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Mass loss for most glaciers in the region is quite worrying as 10 of Asia's largest rivers - including the Indus, Brahmaputra, and Ganges - originate in the Hindu Kush Himalayas. Since these rivers provide water for a quarter of the world's population, such a huge loss may impact water availability in the future if the warming trend continues.
'The State of the Climate in Asia report highlights the changes in key climate indicators such as surface temperature, glacier mass and sea level, which will have major repercussions for societies, economies and ecosystems in the region.
Extreme weather is already exacting an unacceptably high toll,' said WMO secretary-general Celeste Saulo.
Asia is the continent with the largest land mass extending to the Arctic and is warming more than twice as fast as the global average because the temperature increase over land is larger than the temperature increase over the ocean.
'In 2024, most of the ocean area of Asia was affected by marine heatwaves of strong, severe, or extreme intensity – the largest extent since records began in 1993,' said the report.
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