The climate on our planet is not good. Research data show this again and again. A weather phenomenon could cause a particularly warm phase.
Munich – Climate change is a ubiquitous topic. Heat waves, droughts, heavy rain: the consequences are also noticeable in Germany. And the costs that could arise are enormous. According to a study, climate damage could cost Germany up to 900 billion euros by 2050. However, it is becoming clear that the world could be facing a particularly warm phase very soon.
El Niño |
warming |
New temperature record coming soon |
Experts warn of an impending weather phenomenon and fear “new global records in 2023 or 2024”
Shocking records from climate change have made the planet’s crisis clearer than ever over the past year. This was shown by the World Weather Organization (WMO) in their Climate Status Report 2022. As WMO General Secretary Petteri Taalas said in Geneva, the impending El Niño weather phenomenon does not bode well. According to German researchers, because El Niño has a warming effect, a global temperature record could soon be set. Extreme weather was observed in Spain as early as April.
The El Niño event that is likely to develop over the course of this year “first of all increases the probability that 2023 and 2024 will match or exceed the previous record value of 2016 in terms of global mean temperature,” said Andreas Fink from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). A similar forecast was given by Helge Goessling from the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) in Bremerhaven. According to him, it could well be “that new global records will be reached in 2023 or 2024”.
Climate worldwide: warming over 1.5 degrees?
Karsten Haustein from the Institute for Meteorology at the University of Leipzig even considers it conceivable that the year 2024 “will also exceed the 1.5-degree mark globally for the first time on an annual basis”. Actually, the countries of the world wanted to prevent this as much as possible. That’s what the Paris climate agreement says. However, the climate protection efforts made so far are far from sufficient. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has shown that the target is likely to be exceeded for many years before the average global temperature falls again – but only if countries implement significantly stricter climate protection measures.
Climate change: WMO report illustrates startling records
As stated in the WMO report, the following facts belong to the records from 2022:
- The new low of the Antarctic sea ice
- The new peak in greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere
- The largest glacier melt in Europe
- The highest heat content of the oceans
The values always refer to the beginning of the measurements, which are several decades or more in the past. The WMO also confirmed that 2022 was the fifth or sixth warmest year since industrialization, at plus 1.15 degrees above the average for the years 1850 to 1900. The measured values are so close together that it is impossible to distinguish them precisely. The past eight years (2015 to 2022), the WMO also quotes on Twitter from the report, have been the eight warmest years since recording.
Weather phenomenon threatens: experts expect strong El Niño
“The long-lasting La Niña cooling event only temporarily slowed the increase in global temperatures in 2022,” it said. If El Niño develops, it will increase the heat.
The development this year and especially next year is likely to be shaped by the phenomenon. “At the moment it looks very much as if a strong El Niño will occur again in 2023 for the first time since 2015/2016,” said climate scientist Haustein. El Niño is characterized by altered ocean and atmospheric currents and higher ocean surface temperatures in the Pacific. According to Haustein, El Niño has only a minor impact on the weather in Europe.
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