World Meteorological Organization: New record levels for global temperatures in the next five years

Weather of Arabia - According to a new climate update issued by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), global temperatures are likely to rise in the next five years, due to greenhouse gas emissions and the natural El Niño phenomenon, to reach record levels.

It is 66 percent likely that annual average global temperatures near the Earth's surface will exceed pre-industrial levels by 1.5°C in at least one year from 2023-2027. It is 98 percent likely that at least one of the next five years, and this five-year period in total, will be the hottest on record.

WMO Secretary-General Professor Petteri Taalas explained, “This report does not mean that we will permanently exceed the 1.5°C threshold set in the Paris Agreement, which indicates long-term and many years of warming. However, WMO is sounding the alarm.” The danger is to warn that the world will cross the 1.5°C threshold temporarily, but at an increasing pace.

“An El Niño phenomenon is expected to begin in the coming months and, combined with anthropogenic climate change, will cause global temperatures to rise to unprecedented levels. This rise will have serious consequences for health, food security, water management and the environment. Therefore, we must To be on our guard."

According to the annual-to-decadal Global Climate Outlook update prepared by the United Kingdom's Met Office (the Met Office), the WMO headquarters for this type of forecast, there is only a 32 per cent chance that it will exceed the average over the next five years. threshold of 1.5 °C.

However, the probability of temporarily crossing this threshold has been increasing steadily since 2015. At that time, this possibility was almost non-existent, then it increased in the period 2017-2021 to reach 10 percent.

"The global average temperature is expected to continue to rise, taking us further and further away from the climate we knew in the past," notes Dr Leon Hermanson, a UK Met Office scientist who led the report.

Important facts and information

• The global mean temperature for 2022 was 1.15°C higher than the average for the period 1900-1850. The cooling effect of the La Niña event, which has dominated most of the past three years, has allowed the long-term upward trend of global warming to be temporarily curbed. However, the La Niña phase ended in March 2023 and is expected to be replaced in the coming months by the El Niño phase. El Niño events are usually associated with a rise in global temperatures in the year following their onset, in this case 2024.
• In each of the years 2023-2027, the annual mean global near-surface temperature is projected to be 1.1–1.8°C higher than the average for the period 1900-1850. The period 1900-1850 is used as a reference period because it preceded the onset of greenhouse gas emissions from human and industrial activities.
• It is 98 percent likely that at least one of the next five years will break the temperature record set in 2016, a year of exceptionally strong El Niño events.
• It is also 98 percent likely that the average for the five-year period between 2023 and 2027 will exceed the average for the previous five-year period.
• The Arctic is warming at a disproportionate rate. Compared to the 1991-2020 average, the Arctic is expected to experience more than three times the global average temperature anomaly if the next five extended northern hemisphere winters are included.
• Precipitation patterns projected on average for the May-September period of 2023-2027, compared to the average for the period 1991-2020, indicate that precipitation will increase in the Sahel, northern Europe, Alaska, and northern Siberia, and decrease in the Amazon and parts of Australia.