According to the latest data published by the World Meteorological Organization ‒WMO‒Global temperatures are likely to reach record levels in the next five years, driven by heat-trapping greenhouse gases and the natural phenomenon of El Niño.
The international organization said in a report that there is a 66 percent probability that, between 2023 and 2027, the average annual global temperature near the surface will exceed pre-industrial levels by more than 1.5 °C for at least one year.
He also stressed There is a 98 percent chance that at least one of the next five years, as well as the five-year period as a whole, will be the warmest on record..
“These data do not mean that we will permanently exceed the 1.5°C level envisaged in the Paris Agreement, which refers to long-term warming over many years. However, WMO is sounding the alarm that we will exceed 1.5°C only temporarily and with increasing frequency,” said WMO Secretary-General Professor Petteri Taalas.
The official also said that an El Niño episode is expected to take hold in the coming months, which has a warming effect that, combined with climate change caused by human activities, will raise global temperatures to unknown limits.
"This will have far-reaching implications for health, food security, water management and the environment. We need to be prepared," Taalas said.
According to the publication Global Annual to Decadal Climate Update According to a report by the UK Met Office – the WMO’s lead centre for such predictions – there is only a 32 per cent chance that the five-year average will exceed the 1.5°C limit.
In 2015, the probability of global warming ever exceeding 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels was almost zero, but that probability has been increasing ever since. For the period from 2017 to 2021, the probability of exceeding the threshold was 10 percent, according to the WMO.
"Global average temperatures are projected to continue to rise, taking us further away from the climate we are used to," said Dr Leon Hermanson, a senior scientist at the UK Met Office who led the report.
The text states that in 2022, the global average temperature will have exceeded the average for the period between 1850 and 1900 by approximately 1.15 °C. The cooling effect exerted by the La Niña weather conditions during much of the past three years temporarily slowed the longer-term warming trend.
However, the La Niña episode ended in March 2023 and El Niño conditions are expected to return in the coming months.
Typically, El Niño increases global temperatures in the year following its formation, which in this case would be 2024.
The Arctic warming is also disproportionately high. Compared to the 1991-2020 average, the Arctic temperature anomaly is projected to be more than three times the global average anomaly, once the average for the next five long northern hemisphere winters has been calculated.
Compared to the 1991-2020 average, the average forecast for May-September rainfall in 2023-2027 suggests a higher chance of rain in the Sahel, northern Europe, Alaska and northern Siberia, while the Amazon region and parts of Australia will experience drier conditions.
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