Melbourne: One year in the next five years will almost certainly be the warmest, and in the same period there is a strong possibility that one year will exceed the limit of 1.5 °C global warming. This estimate has been made in a new report of the World Meteorological Organization. The ‘Global Annual to Decadal Climate Update’ report warns that if humans fail to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to “net zero”, records for worse heat will be broken this decade.
What will be the outlook for the next five years after this cautionary report? While a possible El Nino will take the global temperature to a record level. If the global average temperature exceeds the 1.5°C limit in any one of the next five years, should it be considered that the Paris Agreement has already failed? No, but it is a stark reminder of what lies ahead if we fail to achieve ‘net zero’ soon.
Global warming makes record heat inevitable. The report said that there is a 98 per cent chance that there will be one year in the next five years when a record-breaking heat will be recorded. At the same time, there is a 66 percent chance that one year in the next five years will exceed the limit of 1.5 ° C of global warming. There is also a 32 per cent chance that the average temperature will exceed the 1.5°C limit in the next five years. The probability of a temperature increase temporarily exceeding 1.5 °C has steadily increased since 2015, when it was close to zero. For the years between 2017 and 2021, the probability was 10 percent.
Human-caused greenhouse gas emissions have already raised the global average temperature by more than 1 °C since the end of the 19th century. According to the report, the average global temperature for the year 2022 was about 1.15°C higher than the 1850–1900 average, despite the cooling effect of La-Nina conditions. Temperatures are now rising by about 0.2 °C per decade. We are warming the world at such a rapid rate that it is setting heat records both globally and locally. Temperatures are reaching unprecedented high levels due to human impacts on the climate.
The possibility of weather phenomenon ‘El-Nino’ can become the reason for the increase in temperature. The current record global average temperature was set in 2016. A major El Niño event earlier that year raised global average temperatures. El Nino is a weather phenomenon that occurs when ocean temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean rise above normal. This increased temperature causes a change in the atmospheric pattern. Due to this, the monsoon cycle in the Indian peninsula is weakened, due to which the rainfall is also less.
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