2024 temp records likely to be surpassed by 2029: WMO report
There is an 80% chance that a year between 2025 and 2029 will be warmer than the record-breaking 2024 and an 86% likelihood that another will exceed 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, the threshold beyond which climate change will make human life more difficult, a new World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) report has warned.
The report said there is a 70% chance that the five-year average warming for 2025-2029 will surpass 1.5°C and lead to more frequent and severe heatwaves, droughts, and extreme weather events. This is up from 47% flagged in last year's WMO report for 2024-2028 and 32% cited in the 2023 one for 2023-2027.
The report titled 'WMO Global Annual to Decadal Climate Update (2025-2029)' emphasised the need for continued climate monitoring to inform decision-making and adapt to the growing impacts of climate change. It added that the annually averaged global mean near-surface temperature for each year between 2025 and 2029 could be between 1.2°C and 1.9 °C higher than the average over 1850-1900.
WMO said the 1.5°C (and 2°C) level specified in the Paris Agreement refers to the long-term level of warming inferred from global temperatures, typically over 20 years. Temporary exceedances of such levels are expected to occur with increasing frequency as the underlying rise in global temperature approaches the level.
'Every additional fraction of a degree of warming drives more harmful heatwaves, extreme rainfall events, intense droughts, melting of ice sheets, sea ice, and glaciers, heating of the ocean, and rising sea levels,' the WMO report said.
Arctic warming over the next five extended winters (November to March) is likely to be over three and a half times the global average, at 2.4°C above the average temperature during the most recent 30-year baseline period (1991-2020). Further reductions in sea-ice concentration in the Barents Sea, Bering Sea, and Sea of Okhotsk were expected for March 2025-2029.
Predicted precipitation patterns for May-September 2025-2029, relative to the 1991-2020 baseline, suggest wetter-than-average conditions in the Sahel, Northern Europe, Alaska, and northern Siberia, and drier-than-average conditions in the Amazon.
In recent years, apart from 2023, South Asian has been wetter-than-average. The forecast suggests this will continue for the 2025-2029 period, and may not be the case for all individual seasons in this period.
WMO deputy secretary general Ko Barrett cited the 10 warmest years on record and added the new report provides no sign of respite over the coming years. '...this means that there will be a growing negative impact on our economies, our daily lives, our ecosystems and our planet,' Barrett said in a statement. 'Continued climate monitoring and prediction is essential to provide decision-makers with science-based tools and information to help us adapt.'
On March 14, the European Union's Earth Observation Programme Copernicus Climate Change Service said the world could cross the 1.5 degree C long-term global warming threshold by September 2029 if the current warming trend continues, a timeline significantly sooner than the 'early 2030s' projection scientists widely agreed upon.
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