The Past Four Years Were the Warmest on Record

The World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) lat­est report reveals that the impacts of cli­mate change are accel­er­at­ing.

In the report, pub­lished on March 28, the WMO’s warns that the ​“phys­i­cal signs and socio-eco­nomic impacts of cli­mate change are accel­er­at­ing” and that record green­house gas lev­els are caus­ing global tem­per­a­tures to shoot up to alarm­ing lev­els.

Figures in the twenty-fifth edi­tion of the annual cli­mate report illus­trate that in the past four years, the globe has expe­ri­enced the warmest tem­per­a­tures on record, high ocean tem­per­a­tures and a record rise in sea lev­els. It also warns that the global warm­ing trend is set to con­tinue.

“The data released in this report give cause for great con­cern,” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres wrote. ​“The past four years were the warmest on record.”

Some of the key facts out­lined in the report include:

• 2015 to 2018 were the four warmest years on record with 2016 and 2017 the warmest of the four.
• The aver­age world tem­per­a­ture is 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) above pre-indus­trial lev­els.
• Ocean tem­per­a­tures have reached record lev­els.
• Sea lev­els con­tinue to rise and the Arctic and Antarctic ice caps are melt­ing.
• Carbon diox­ide lev­els also con­tinue to rise.
• There was an above-aver­age num­ber of trop­i­cal storms in 2018.
• In the past year, extreme weather events impacted 62 mil­lion peo­ple world­wide. Some of these included Hurricane Florence and Hurricane Michael in the United States; Super Typhoon Mangkhut in the Philippines; heat­waves and wild­fires in the U.S., Europe and Japan; and heavy rain­fall and flood­ing in the South Indian state of Kerala.

In the fore­word to the report, Petteri Taalas, the WMO’s sec­re­tary-gen­eral warns that “[the] global tem­per­a­ture has risen to close to 1 degree Celsius above the pre-indus­trial period. The time remain­ing to achieve com­mit­ments under the Paris agree­ment is quickly run­ning out.”

The report also cau­tions that these extreme cli­matic pat­terns have a neg­a­tive effect on agri­cul­ture and pose a real threat to food secu­rity. Following gains made in end­ing hunger and revers­ing mal­nu­tri­tion, the num­ber of under­nour­ished peo­ple increased in 2017 to 821 mil­lion due to drought sit­u­a­tions brought on by the El Niño phe­nom­e­non in 2015 and 2016, and extreme weather events.

It also points out that peo­ple depen­dent on agri­cul­ture as a liveli­hood and those liv­ing in coun­tries prone to drought and tem­per­a­ture vari­abil­ity are espe­cially vul­ner­a­ble.

A cold out­break in the win­ter of 2018 in Europe caused abnor­mal snow­falls in the south­ern Mediterranean region, and specif­i­cally in the south of France and south­ern Italy. The same region expe­ri­enced heavy rain­fall, high winds and flood­ing in late October brought by an intense low-pres­sure sys­tem in the Mediterranean Sea, with Italy suf­fer­ing the worst dam­age.

Extreme weather pat­terns in 2018 have been blamed for the poor har­vest expe­ri­enced by Greek pro­duc­ers, a record-low olive oil yield in Italy and a dis­mal har­vest in California.

In a recent sur­vey of farm­ers con­ducted by Olive Oil Times, there was a con­sen­sus that the mount­ing cli­matic extremes would call for vig­i­lance.

“These data con­firm the urgency of cli­mate action,” Guterres said. ​“There is no longer any time for delay.”

• WMO


• WMO Report