Global temps for 2020 among hottest ever
WASHINGTON: Global temperatures in 2020 were among the highest on record and rivalled 2016 as the hottest year ever, according to international data compiled by the World Meteorological Organisation and released on Thursday.
The heat came even as a global economic slowdown from the Covid19 pandemic cut deeply into emissions from fossil fuels, adding evidence that carbon dioxide concentrations already in the atmosphere have set the planet on a warming track.
The WMO report included data from the United States
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the UK Met Office, both of which ranked 2020 as the secondwarmest year on record, as a cooling trend called La
Nina failed to tame global temperatures. Nasa, whose data was also included, said 2020 tied with 2016 as the warmest year on record.
The news is ‘‘yet another stark reminder of the relentless pace of climate change, which is destroying lives and livelihoods across our planet’’, UN Secretarygeneral Antonio Guterres said.
‘‘Making peace with nature is the defining task of the 21st century.’’
WMO said the differences in average global temperatures among the three warmest years, 2016, 2019 and 2020, were indistinguishably small. The average global temperature in 2020 was about 14.9degC, or about 1.2degC above the 18501900 preindustrial level.
That approached the preferred 1.5degC lower limit of temperature increase the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change sought to avert.
All five datasets surveyed by WMO showed 201120 was the warmest decade on record, and NOAA said the seven warmest years since recordkeeping began in 1880 have occurred since 2014.
There is at least a oneinfive chance the average global temperature will temporarily exceed that limit by 2024, according to a WMO analysis, led by the UK Met Office.
Greenhouse gas emissions in the US, the secondleading source of the pollution after China, fell more than 10% last year, the largest drop in the postWorld War 2 era, as the coronavirus crippled the economy, the Rhodium Group said this week.
The dip should not be seen as a guarantee the US can easily meet its pledge under the Paris
Agreement to cut emissions by 28% by 2025. President Donald Trump pulled the US from the accord, but Presidentelect Joe Biden has promised to rejoin after taking over on January 20.
The WMO, a UN agency, relied on data from observing sites and ships and buoys from NOAA and Nasa, the UK’s Met Office Hadley Centre and the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit.
It also tapped datasets from the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts and its Copernicus Climate Change Service, and the Japan Meteorological Agency. — Reuters