There is a two out of three chance that the earth will (temporarily) warm up by one and a half degrees in 2027. That reports the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Wednesday. This makes it more likely for the first time that the expected temperature rise will exceed this critical limit than that it will not.
Last year the chance was fifty-fifty. “The increase in temperature will have far-reaching consequences for health, food security, water management and the environment: we must prepare,” said WMO Secretary General Petteri Taalas in a press release.
The revised forecast is due to El Niño, a natural phenomenon that occurs once every two to seven years, in which warm water in the Pacific Ocean warms the air so that the average temperature around the world rises slightly. That natural temperature increase, which could lead to as much as 0.3 degrees of warming, comes on top of “human-induced climate changes and will push global temperatures into previously unexplored territory,” said Secretary-General Taalas.
WMO sounds the alarm
He added: “This report does not mean that we will permanently exceed the one and a half degrees agreed in the Paris Agreement, which is about long-term warming over many years. But the WMO sounds the alarm that we will temporarily break through the one and a half degree limit with increasing regularity.” In the Paris Agreements, virtually all countries in the world agreed to jointly ensure that the temperature increase compared to the pre-industrial era remains below one and a half degrees; the border at which floods, droughts and other deadly weather events will become much more common.
It was a great victory for the climate cause at the time that the international community agreed. Since then, it has become apparent that the implementation of the treaty by countries that have signed it is not getting off to a good start. Meanwhile, the average temperature rise is already 1.15 degrees higher than during the benchmark in the nineteenth century.
The WMO, more than institutes that study climate change, focuses on predicting temperature developments in the short term. The organization also concluded that there is a 98 percent chance that one of the next five years will be the hottest on record. Previously, the hottest year measured was 2016, even then there was an exceptionally strong El Niño that pushed up the temperature.
Read also Scientists predict new El Niño and – temporarily – additional warming