The World Meteorological Organization(WMO), on Tuesday, reported that the year, 2016 has broken several records, as of climate is concerned. It has made history, not only with a record global temperature, but also, exceptionally low sea ice and unabated sea level rise. Not to mention the record ocean heat.
WMO issued its annual statement ahead of the World Meteorological Day on 23 March. The report considers multiple international data, collected from all meteorological departments, world-wide. As the social and economic impacts of climate change have become so important, WMO extended its partnership with other UN organisations to include these information.
Petteri Taalas, WMO Secretary-General, said, “This report confirms that the year 2016 was the warmest on record – a remarkable 1.1 °C above the pre-industrial period, which is 0.06 °C above the previous record set in 2015”.
Source: WMO
He also said that the globally averaged sea surface temperatures are also the warmest on record. He said that the global sea levels continued to rise. The Arctic ice level was also well below average. Taalas also said that the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are consistently breaking new records.
The report also takes into account the powerful 2015/2016 El Niño event. It boosted the warming in 2016, on top of the long-term climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions. Global sea levels also rose very strongly during this event.
The global sea ice extent also dropped more than 4 million square kilometres below average in November. Also, the very warm ocean temperatures contributed to significant coral bleaching and mortality in many tropical waters. The rise in ocean temperature also caused damage to the marine food chains, ecosystems and fisheries.
Source: WMO
Alike every year, WMO will submit the annual report to the Conference of the Parties of the Framework Convention on Climate Change. The organization will present it to UN member states and climate experts at a high-level action event on Climate Change and the Sustainable Development Agenda. President of UN General Assembly Peter Thomson will host the event in New York on 23 March.
WMO also reported that the extreme weather and climate conditions have continued into 2017.
