The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has warned that global temperatures will exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels for the first time in the next five years.
This temperature has a 66% chance of being recorded at least once between now and 2027, which would be the first time in human history.
Almost every government in the world has pledged to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. At the COP21 climate summit, they accomplished this by signing the historic Paris Climate Agreement.
If a 1.5C temperature increase is documented, it does not indicate the planet has permanently exceeded the barrier.
The global average temperature would have to reach 1.5 degrees Celsius Many more times before the climate could be said to have permanently warmed to that level.
The WMO also predicted that the hottest year on record will be broken during this period.
Dr Leon Hermanson of the Met Office Hadley Centre, one of the experts who led the report, said: “We have never crossed 1.5C. The current record is 1.28C.
“It’s very likely we’re going to exceed that, we might even reach 1.5C – it’s more likely than not that we will
“It’s not this long-term warming that the Paris Agreement talks about, but it is an indication that as we start having these years, with 1.5C happening more and more often, we’re getting closer and closer to having the actual long-term climate being on that threshold.”
El Nino typically causes an increase in global temperatures the following year
The possibility that the five-year mean average will rise above the 1.5C limit is only 32%.
The WMO also stated that there is a 98% possibility that the previous record-breaking year will be surpassed within that time.
Dr. Hermanson predicted that a combination of greenhouse gases and the occurrence of El Nino, a weather phenomenon that causes the eastern Pacific to warm and has a global impact on rainfall and temperature.
According to the WMO, La Nina, it’s opposite, cooled atmospheric temperatures over the majority of the last three years, but this has since ended.
El Nino typically causes an increase in global temperatures the following year. Therefore, scientists anticipate an increase in temperature in 2024.
The WMO general secretary Professor Petteri Taalas said: “A warming El Nino is expected to develop in the coming months and this will combine with human-induced climate change to push global temperatures into uncharted territory.
“This will have far-reaching repercussions for health, food security, water management and the environment. We need to be prepared.”
