GENEVA, Switzerland: It is almost certain that 2023-2027 will be the warmest ever five-year period recorded on earth, warned the United Nations (UN) on Wednesday as greenhouse gases and El Nino combine to send temperatures rising.
There is a two-thirds chance that at least one of the next five years will record global temperatures exceed the more ambitious target set out in the Paris accords on limiting climate change, said the United Nation’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
The hottest eight years ever recorded were all between 2015-2022, with 2016 the warmest — but temperatures are predicted to increase further as climate change intensifies.
“There is a 98 percent chance that at least one of the next five years, and the five-year period as a whole, will be the warmest ever on record,” the UN agency said.
The countries agreed to cap global warming at “well below” two degrees Celsius above average levels measured between 1850 and 1900 — and 1.5C if possible, under the 2015 Paris Agreement. The global mean temperature in 2022 was recorded 1.15C above the 1850-1900 average.
The UN’s World Meteorological Organization said there was a 66 percent likelihood that annual global surface temperatures will exceed 1.5C above pre-industrial levels for at least one of the years between 2023-2027, with a range of 1.1C to 1.8C forecast for each of those five years.
“WMO is sounding the alarm that we will breach the 1.5C level on a temporary basis with increasing frequency”, said the United Nation’s World Meteorological Organization chief Petteri Taalas.
“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 food security, health, environment and the water management. We need to be prepared.”
El Nino is the large-scale warming of surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. The weather phenomenon normally occurs every two-seven years.
The major greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide, plus nitrous oxide and methane. “The return to normal level might take even thousands of years because we already have such a high concentration of carbon dioxide, and we have lost the melting of glaciers and sea level game,” said WMO chief. “There’s no return to the climate which persisted during the last century. That’s a fact.”
