NEW DELHI: Will the year 2023 breach the 1.5 degrees celsius temperature threshold in sync with the World Meteorological Organisation’s prediction in May that the annual average global temperature between 2023 and 2027 will be more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels for at least one year?
The answer to this may lie in the data, released recently by NASA, showing how July was the hottest month on record ever since 1880 and how the month was overall 1.18 degrees celsius warmer than the average July between 1951 and 1980.
Though the WMO did not say that the world will permanently exceed the threshold, specified in the Paris Agreement which refers to long-term warming over many years, the NASA data for July and different analysis/data for other summer months could be a warning sign.
According to the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF), global mean temperatures even for the first few days of June were more than 1.5 degrees celsius higher than pre-industrial (1850-1900) averages, which was a first time for the summer months.
Although there have been earlier instances of the daily global temperature exceeding the 1.5 degrees celsius threshold, such phenomena is reported only in the winter and spring months (December-April) in the northern hemisphere where deviations from the past trends are more pronounced. So, the breach in summer months indicates the possibility that 2023 is not only going to be among the hottest years on record but also being the year of crossing the 1.5 degrees C limit. The existing El Nino (warming of the ocean surface in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean) phenomenon would make this possibility much stronger.
In May, the WMO said there was a 66% likelihood that the annual average near-surface global temperature between 2023 and 2027 will be more than 1.5 degree C above pre-industrial levels for at least one year. “There is a 98% likelihood that at least one of the next five years, and the five-year period as a whole, will be the warmest on record,” it predicted.
Earlier, the WMO in its annual state of the global climate report in April said that the global mean temperature in 2022 was 1.15 degree Celsius above the 1850–1900 average — which is quite close to the target to keep the temperature rise within 1.5 degree C by the end of the century to save the world from the catastrophic effects of climate change.
The report also underlined that the record levels of three main heat trapping greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide – in atmosphere turned the past eight years (2015-22) the warmest on record with 2022 being the fifth or sixth warmest year despite the cooling impact of a La Niña event for the past three years — a “triple-dip” that has happened only three times in the past 50 years.
The answer to this may lie in the data, released recently by NASA, showing how July was the hottest month on record ever since 1880 and how the month was overall 1.18 degrees celsius warmer than the average July between 1951 and 1980.
Though the WMO did not say that the world will permanently exceed the threshold, specified in the Paris Agreement which refers to long-term warming over many years, the NASA data for July and different analysis/data for other summer months could be a warning sign.
According to the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF), global mean temperatures even for the first few days of June were more than 1.5 degrees celsius higher than pre-industrial (1850-1900) averages, which was a first time for the summer months.
Although there have been earlier instances of the daily global temperature exceeding the 1.5 degrees celsius threshold, such phenomena is reported only in the winter and spring months (December-April) in the northern hemisphere where deviations from the past trends are more pronounced. So, the breach in summer months indicates the possibility that 2023 is not only going to be among the hottest years on record but also being the year of crossing the 1.5 degrees C limit. The existing El Nino (warming of the ocean surface in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean) phenomenon would make this possibility much stronger.
In May, the WMO said there was a 66% likelihood that the annual average near-surface global temperature between 2023 and 2027 will be more than 1.5 degree C above pre-industrial levels for at least one year. “There is a 98% likelihood that at least one of the next five years, and the five-year period as a whole, will be the warmest on record,” it predicted.
Earlier, the WMO in its annual state of the global climate report in April said that the global mean temperature in 2022 was 1.15 degree Celsius above the 1850–1900 average — which is quite close to the target to keep the temperature rise within 1.5 degree C by the end of the century to save the world from the catastrophic effects of climate change.
The report also underlined that the record levels of three main heat trapping greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide – in atmosphere turned the past eight years (2015-22) the warmest on record with 2022 being the fifth or sixth warmest year despite the cooling impact of a La Niña event for the past three years — a “triple-dip” that has happened only three times in the past 50 years.
