Last year was the hottest year in the history of measurements.
Years 2014–2023 was the hottest decade in the Earth’s measurement history, according to the World Meteorological Organization’s WMO report. The UN organization published its annual climate report on Tuesday.
Last year was the hottest year in the history of measurements. The melting rate of the Earth’s glaciers was also the fastest in the history of measurements last year.
Secretary General of the UN António Guterres estimate that the Earth is sending an emergency message.
“Pollution caused by fossil fuels creates increasing climate chaos,” he characterized.
According to the UN Secretary General, the report shows that the planet is on the brink of an abyss.
According to the results now received by the WMO, the average surface temperature last year was 1.45 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level. The figure is dangerously close to the critical 1.5 degree threshold that countries agreed to avoid in the 2015 Paris climate accords.
“We have never been so close… to the 1.5 degree lower limit of the Paris Agreement”, stressed the head of the WMO Andrea Celeste Saulo in the organization’s statement.
Saul according to the report published now should be seen as a “red alert” for the world. He emphasized that climate change is about much more than temperatures.
“What we saw in 2023, especially unprecedented ocean warming, retreating glaciers and loss of Antarctic sea ice, is particularly worrying.”
By the end of 2023, more than 90 percent of the oceans had experienced heat waves at some point during the year. Frequent and more intense heat waves in the seas will cause “profound negative impacts” on marine ecosystems and coral reefs, the WMO warned.
For example, in Switzerland, where the WMO headquarters are located, alpine glaciers lost a tenth of their remaining volume in the past two years. Likewise, the extent of Antarctic sea ice is also “clearly the lowest ever”.
The combined effect of sea warming and melting glaciers raised the sea level last year to the highest level since satellite measurements began. They were started in 1993.
The WMO emphasizes that the average sea level rise during the past decade was more than double compared to the first decade of satellite measurements (1993–2002).
