Sea levels are doubling and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are reaching a record, warns the World Meteorological Organization.
Record levels of greenhouse gases have “caused planetary-scale changes in the land, ocean and atmosphere,” a UN agency says in a report showing that the past eight years have been the warmest on record.
Global sea levels are rising more than twice as fast as in the first decade of measurements from 1993 to 2002 and hit a new record last year, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said Friday in its State of Global Climate 2022 report. .
Extreme melting of glaciers and record ocean temperatures, causing water to expand, contributed to an average sea level rise of 4.62 mm per year between 2013 and 2022, the organization said in a report on the devastation climate change has wrought. wrought.
“Glacier melting and sea level rise — which reached record levels again in 2022 — will continue for thousands of years,” the report said. “Sea ice in Antarctica fell to the lowest level on record and the melting of some European glaciers was literally off the charts.”
Floods, droughts and heat waves occurred all over the world and cost many billions of dollars. The amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide and methane in the air reached the highest amounts on record in modern times.
“This report shows that greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere continue to reach record levels again – contributing to warming land and oceans, melting of ice caps and glaciers, rising sea levels, and warming and acidification of the oceans” , says WHO. Secretary-General Petteri Taalas wrote in the report’s foreword.
Overall, the WMO said, 2022 was the fifth or sixth warmest year on record with global average temperatures 1.15 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average, despite the cooling impact of a three-year La Niña climate event in the Pacific ocean.
Climate scientists have warned that the world could break a new average temperature record in 2023 or 2024, fueled by climate change and the expected return of warming El Niño conditions.
Record breaking
The past eight years have been the hottest on record globally, the report said.
The United Kingdom, France, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and New Zealand experienced their warmest years on record.
“In 2022, persistent drought in East Africa, record-breaking rainfall in Pakistan, and record-breaking heat waves in China and Europe affected tens of millions, created food insecurity, spurred mass migration, and cost billions of dollars in loss and damage. ‘ wrote Taalas.
China’s heat wave was the longest and most extensive on record, with the summer not only being the hottest but shattering the old record by more than 0.5 degrees Celsius (0.9 degrees Fahrenheit), the 55-page report said.
Africa’s drought has displaced more than 1.7 million people in Somalia and Ethiopia, while devastating floods in Pakistan, which at one point submerged a third of the country, have displaced about 8 million people. driven flight.
In a message ahead of Earth Day on Saturday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said warned that “biodiversity is collapsing with a million species on the brink of extinction”. He called on the world to end its “ruthless and senseless wars against nature.”
“We have the tools, the knowledge and the solutions” to tackle climate change, Guterres said.