All indicators are red. After the latest IPCC report and many other scientific studies, a report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) notes that the eight years from 2015 to 2022 were the hottest on record. This “chronicle of climate chaos” shows “so clearly that change is happening at catastrophic speed, devastating lives on all continents”, worries UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.
“As COP27 begins, our planet is sending a distress signal,” he says in a video broadcast in Sharm el-Sheikh, calling for responses with “ambitious and credible actions” during the two weeks of this conference. on the climate in Egypt.
2021 and 2022 warmer than 2011 and 2012
With an estimated average temperature 1.15°C warmer than in the pre-industrial era, the year 2022 is expected to rank “only” the fifth or sixth warmest year, due to the unusual influence , for a third consecutive year, of the La Niña ocean phenomenon, which leads to a drop in temperatures. “But that doesn’t reverse the long-term trend; it’s only a matter of time before there’s another warmer year,” insisted the WMO, the UN’s specialized agency.
The average temperature over the decade 2013-2022 is estimated at 1.14°C above that of the pre-industrial era, compared to 1.09°C over the period 2011-2020. The Paris Climate Agreement aims to limit warming to well below 2°C, if possible 1.5°C. While science has proven that every tenth of a degree multiplies extreme weather events, this most ambitious goal of +1.5°C has become the “keep alive” goal.
Too late for some glaciers
“The concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere are so high that the objective of 1.5°C (…) is barely within the realm of possibility”, commented Sunday the boss of the OMM Petteri Taalas. “It is already too late for many glaciers and the melting will continue for hundreds or even thousands of years, with major consequences for water supplies,” he added.
Thus, the glaciers of the Alps recorded in 2022 a record loss of ice mass, with a reduction in thickness of three to four meters, “much more than during the previous record in 2003”. The planet has also been the victim this year of an avalanche of extreme events, from historic floods in Pakistan to repeated heat waves in Europe, including drought in the Horn of Africa.
“We know that some of these disasters, floods and heat in Pakistan, floods and cyclones in southern Africa, Hurricane Ian, extreme heat waves and drought in Europe would not have been so severe without climate change,” commented Friederike Otto, a climatologist at Imperial College London. “If ever there was a year to tear down and burn the blinders that prevent climate action, this is it,” added Dave Reay, from the University of Edinburgh.