UN weather agency predicts 2 in 3 chance of briefly reaching key heat limit

Theres a twooutofthree chance within the next five years that the world will temporarily reach the internationally accepted global temperature threshold for limiting the worst effects of climate change a new World Meteorological Organisation report forecastsIt likely would only be a fleeting and less worrisome flirtation with the agreedupon climate danger point the United Nations weather agency said on WednesdayThats because scientists expect a temporary burst of heat from an El Nino will supercharge humancaused warming from the burning of coal oil and gas to new heights and then slip back down a bitThe 2015 Paris climate agreement set 15 degrees Celsius 27 degrees Fahrenheit as a global guardrail in atmospheric warming with countries pledging to try to prevent that much longterm warming if possible Scientists in a special 2018 United Nations report said going past that point would be drastically and dangerously different with more death destruction and damage to global ecosystemsIt wont be this year probably Maybe itll be next year or the year after that a year averages 15 degrees Celsius said report lead author Leon Hermanson a climate scientist at the United Kingdoms Met Office But climate scientists said whats likely to happen in the next five years isnt the same as failing the global goalThis report does not mean that we will permanently exceed the 15C level specified in the Paris Agreement which refers to longterm warming over many years However WMO is sounding the alarm that we will breach the 15C level on a temporary basis with increasing frequency WMO SecretaryGeneral Petteri Taalas said in a statementA single year doesnt really mean anything Hermanson said Scientists usually use 30year averages Those 66 per cent odds of a single year hitting that threshold in five years have increased from 48 per cent last year 40 per cent the year before 20 per cent in 2020 and 10 per cent about a decade ago The WMO report is based on calculations by 11 different climate science centres across the globeThe world has been inching closer to the 15degree threshold due to humancaused climate change for years The temporary warming of this years expected El Nino a phenomenon that starts with a warming of parts of the central Pacific Ocean and then sloshes across the globe makes it possible for us to see a single year exceeding 15C a full decade before the longterm average warming driven by human emissions of greenhouse gases does said climate scientist Zeke Hausfather of the tech company Stripe and Berkeley Earth who wasnt part of the WMO reportAlso readConflict climate change Covid costofliving heighten threats for womenWe dont expect the longerterm average to pass 15C until the earlytomid 2030s Hausfather said in an emailBut each year at or near 15 matters We see this report as more of a barometer of how were getting close because the closer you get to the threshold the more noise bumping up and down is going to bump you over the threshold randomly Hermanson said in an interview And he said the more random bumps over the mark occur the closer the world actually gets to the thresholdKey in all this is the El Nino cycle The world is coming off a recordtying triple dip La Nina three straight years of El Ninos cooler cousin restraining the humancaused warming climb and is on the verge of an El Nino that some scientists predict will be strong The La Nina somewhat flattened the trend of humancaused warming so that the world hasnt broken the annual temperature mark since 2016 the last El Nino supersized one Hermanson saidAnd that means a 98 per cent chance of breaking the 2016 annual global temperature record between now and 2027 the report said Theres also a 98 per cent chance that the next five years will be the hottest five years on record the report said Because of the shift from La Nina to El Nino where there were floods before there will be droughts and where there were droughts before there might be floods Hermanson saidThe report warned that the Amazon will be abnormally dry for a good part of the next five years while the Sahel part of Africa the transition zone between the Sahara on the north and the savannas to the south will be wetterThats iquestone of the positive things coming out of this forecast Hermanson said Its not all doomandgloom and heat waves University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann said reports like this put too much emphasis on global surface temperature which varies with the El Nino cycle even though it is climbing upward in the long term The real concern is the deep water of oceans which absorb an overwhelming majority of the worlds humancaused warming leading to a steady rise in ocean heat content and new records set regularlyMann said its wrong to think the worlds about to exceed the threshold any time now because a concerted effort to lower carbon emissions can still avoid crossing it altogether Mann said Thats what we need to be focused onThis story has been 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