The UN raises to 50% the probability that the Earth will warm 1.5 degrees until 2026

The Earth harbors a 50% chance that the average annual temperature will temporarily and for the first time reach 1.5 degrees of warming in the next five years with respect to pre-industrial levels, a percentage that increases over time.

This new climate prediction is contained in an annual to ten-year global climate bulletin prepared by the Met Office, the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) main centre for such predictions.

It is a publication that is updated every year based on the knowledge of renowned climatologists and the best computer models of climate centers around the world.

That probability of the Earth reaching 1.5 degrees of global warming for the first time in the next five years has steadily increased since 2015, when it was close to zero.

It was 10% between 2017 and 2021, and that percentage rises to 50% between 2022 and 2026.

According to the new report, released on Monday, the global average near-surface temperature is expected to be between 1.1 and 1.7°C higher each year between 2022 and 2026 than pre-industrial levels (i.e. the average between 1850 and 1900).

In addition, there is a 93% chance that at least one year between 2022 and 2026 will become the warmest ever recorded, and thus displace 2016 from that top position.

The probability that the global average temperature in the five years between 2022 and 2026 will be higher than the last five years (2017 to 2021) is also 93%.

The Arctic temperature anomaly could be three times higher than the global average over the next five winters in the Northern Hemisphere, compared to the average between 1991 and 2020.

“This study shows, with a high level of scientific skill, that we are moving measurably closer to temporarily reaching the lowest target of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. The figure of 1.5°C is not a random statistic. It is rather an indicator of the point at which climate impacts will become increasingly harmful to people and, indeed, to the entire planet,” said Petteri Taalas, WMO Secretary-General.

Taalas added: “As long as we continue to emit greenhouse gases, temperatures will continue to rise. And along with that, our oceans will continue to become warmer and more acidic, sea ice and glaciers will continue to melt, sea levels will continue to rise, and our climate will become more extreme. Arctic warming is disproportionately high and what happens in the Arctic affects us all.”

Paris Agreement

The Paris Agreement sets long-term goals to guide all nations to substantially reduce global greenhouse gas emissions to limit global temperature rise this century to 2°C, while continuing efforts to limit the rise to 1.5°C.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stresses that climate-related risks to natural and human systems are higher for global warming of 1.5°C than they are today.

“A single year of exceeding 1.5°C does not mean that we have exceeded the iconic threshold of the Paris Agreement, but it does reveal that we are getting closer and closer to a situation where 1.5 C could be exceeded over an extended period,” said Leon Hermanson of the Met Office.

In 2021, the global average temperature was 1.1°C above the pre-industrial baseline, according to the WMO interim report on the state of the global climate, the final version of which will be published on 18 May.

Consecutive La Niña events in early and late 2021 had a cooling effect on global temperatures, but this was temporary and does not reverse the long-term global warming trend. Any development of an El Niño episode would immediately fuel temperatures, as it did in 2016, which is so far the warmest year ever recorded.

Source: ABC