SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt — Earth’s warming weather and rising seas are getting worse and doing so faster than before, the World Meteorological Organization warned Sunday in a somber note as world leaders started gathering for international climate negotiations. The latest State of the Global Climate Report is a record of climate chaos,” said Antonio Guterres, United Nations Secretary General. “We must answer the planet’s distress signal with action — ambitious, credible climate action.”
In its annual state of the climate report, the United Nations’ weather agency said that sea level rise in the past decade was double what it was in the 1990s and since January 2020 has jumped at a higher rate than that. Since the decade began, seas are rising at 5 millimeters a year (. 2 inches) compared to 2. 1 millimeters (. 08 inches) in the 1990s.
The last eight years have been the warmest on record, the WMO said in a report that didn’t break new ground but was a collection of recent weather trends, data and impacts in one central place.
” The melting (of ice), game we have lost as well as the sea level rate,” Petteri Taalas, chief WMO of The Associated Press. “There are no positive indicators so far.”
The only reason that the globe hasn’t broken annual temperature records in the past few years is a rare three-year La Nina weather phenomenon, he said. The data about sea level and temperatures is nothing when compared with the impact climate change has had on people. The report highlights the summer’s incredible flood in Pakistan that killed more than 1,700 people and displaced 7. 9 million, a crippling four-year drought in East Africa that has more than 18 million hungry, the Yangtze River drying to its lowest level in August, and record heat-waves broiling people in Europe and China. This latest World Meteorological Organization report reads almost like a report on a patient in distress. It also includes a report about the 90Yangtze River drying to its lowest level in August, record heat-waves that are roiling people in Europe and China.
Levels of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide all reached record high levels, with potent methane increasing at a record pace, the report said.
This is more than simply warming the land. Ice, both Greenland’s ice sheet and the world’s glaciers, are shrinking precipitously, the report said. For the 26th year in a row, Greenland lost ice when all types of ice are factored in. The volume of glacier snow in Switzerland dropped by more than one-third from 2001 to 2022, the report said.
But 90% of the heat trapped on Earth goes into the ocean and the upper 2000 meters (6561 feet) of the ocean is getting warmer faster. The rate of warming the last 15 years is 67% faster than since 1971, the report said.
That ocean heat “will continue to warm in the future – a change which is irreversible on centennial to millennial time scales,” the report said.
Outside experts weren’t surprised by the report and said no one should be.
” This is what climate scientists warn about every day for over a decade. And will continue to worsen without action,” said University of Georgia meteorology professor Marshall Shepherd. It’s here. It’s here.”
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