The predicted El Nino weather cycle could push temperatures into “uncharted territory”, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has warned.
The group said that El Nino could combine with human-induced climate change to cause a standard breach of the 1.5°C level specified in the Paris Agreement.
The WMO added scientists were probable to record a global mean temperature of more than 1.5C beyond pre-industrial quantity over the next five years.
It said there was a 66% chance of this temperature being taped at slight once between now and 2027 – which would blemish the first time in human history – and a 98% chance of the hottest year is broken.
WMO Secretary-General Professor Petteri Taalas said: “A warming El Niño is anticipated to develop in the coming months, and this will merge with human-induced weather change to push global temperatures into untravelled territory.”
He added: “This will have far-reaching effects on health, food security, water management and the habitat. We need to be prepared.”
Prof Taalas said the description did not mean we would forever exceed the 1.5°C level, which mentions long-term warming over many years.
But he said the WMO was sounding the alarm it would be breached temporarily with increasing frequency.
The WMO said the chance of temporarily exceeding 1.5°C had risen steadily since 2015, when it was close to zero.
It added for the years between 2017 and 2021; there was a 10% prospect of exceedance.
But the WMO said there was barely a 32% chance that the five-year mean would exceed the 1.5C threshold.
Unprecedented global temperature rises will probably see the Paris Agreement’s 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.6 degrees Fahrenheit) threshold breach at some point in the next five years, a United Nations (U.N.) report predicts.
The U.N.’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) gave the stark warning in its latest annual evaluation. According to the WMO, there is a 66% chance that yearly global surface temperatures will temporarily breach the threshold of a 1.5C rise above pre-industrial levels. This would be the first time such a rise had been recorded in human history.
Understanding El Niño and its Impact on Temperature
Scientists have warned that crossing the 1.5C threshold dramatically increases the risks of encountering tipping points that could unleash irreversible climate breakdowns — such as the collapse of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets; extreme heat waves; severe droughts; water stress; extreme weather across large parts of the globe.
Around 200 countries mortgage to limit global temperature rises to 1.5C or under in the 2015 Paris (opens in new tab)Agreement. Now, even temporarily, that limit could be ruptured for the first time.
“A warming El Niño is awaiting to develop in the future months, and this will merge with human-induced climate change to push global temperatures into uncharted territory,” Petteri Taalas(opens in new tab), the assistant general of the WMO, said in a statement(opens in new tab). “This will have far-reaching results for health, food security, water care and the environment. We need to be prepared.”
El Niño occurs when trade winds, which typically push warm water westwards over the Pacific Ocean from South America to Asia, weaken, carrying more warm water in place. This strongly affects climate patterns worldwide, making South America wetter and bringing drought (and sometimes famine) to regions such as Australia, Indonesia, Northern China and Northeastern Brazil.
In the U.S., El Niño tends to warm northern and dryer and southern regions wetter. Because it causes warmer water to spread further and remain near the ocean’s surface, it also heats the atmosphere worldwide.
The latest WMO description shelter the years 2023 to 2027. It says there is a 98% possibility that one of the succeeding five years will be the balmy ever—great 2016’s 2.3 F (1.28 C) record temperature rise.
The chances of higher temperature swings are also increasing: The odds of breaching the 1.5C temperature threshold were near zero in 2015; it rebelled to 48% in 2022; and is now 66% just a year later.
The observer said much of this warming would be unevenly distributed. The Arctic, for instance, will see temperatures fluctuate by three times as much as the recline of the world, accelerating melting that could severely impact weather systems such as the jet brook and the North Atlantic current — crucial systems for regulating temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere.
Rainfall, meanwhile, is expected to lessen across Central America, Australia, Indonesia and the Amazon. Deforestation, climate change, and burnings have caused the gigantic rainforest to lose some of its flexibility since the 2000s, leading to concern among scientists that it may cross a top point that could transform it into a savanna.
