Get ready for a hotter year!
The United Nations has raised the alarm, warning that 2024 might outshine the scorching temperatures witnessed in the record-breaking 2023 due to the potent influence of El Nino.
Hence, brace yourself for a climate that's about to turn up the heat, according to the UN.
The UN's World Meteorological Organization (WMO) revealed a troubling pattern. From June to December last year, new monthly temperature records were set consecutively, with July and August marking the two hottest months ever recorded.
The 2023 annual average global temperature soared to 1.45 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, securing its place as the warmest year on record by a considerable margin.
El Nino, the naturally occurring climate pattern notorious for boosting global temperatures, emerged in the middle of 2023. According to Celeste Saulo, the WMO's secretary-general, the shift from the cooling La Nina to the warming El Nino in 2023 is already evident in the rising temperatures. But here's the kicker - El Nino's impact tends to peak in the year following its development. This means 2024 could crank up the heat even more.
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) backs this claim, estimating a one in three chance that 2024 will surpass the scorching temperatures of 2023. In fact, there's a staggering 99 percent certainty that 2024 will rank among the five warmest years ever recorded. NASA climatologist Gavin Schmidt puts the odds at about 50-50, emphasizing the mysterious changes in Earth's climate systems that demand more data for confirmation.
Why is this such a big deal? Well, the WMO's new secretary-general, Celeste Saulo, calls climate change "the biggest challenge that humanity faces." NOAA reported that the 2023 global surface temperature was 1.18 degrees Celsius above the 20th-century average, with certain regions, including the Arctic and northern North America, experiencing even higher temperatures.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres doesn't mince words, stating that humanity's actions are "scorching the Earth."
The WMO echoes this sentiment, pointing out that since the 1980s, each decade has been warmer than the previous one. It's a stark reminder that the world needs to act now to avoid a catastrophic future.
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