NEW DELHI: The year 2020 is on track to be one of three warmest years on record while the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHG) continued to rise despite the Covid-19 lockdown, leading to further warming of the planet, said the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) in its annual ‘State of the Global Climate’ report.
The report, released on Wednesday and based on data from January-October, noted that the average global temperature in 2020 is set to be about 1.2°C above the pre-industrial (1850-1900) level and there is at least a one in five chance of it temporarily exceeding 1.5°C by 2024 — the warming average considered quite disastrous for the globe.
It observed that 2011-2020 will be the warmest decade on record, with the warmest six years all being since 2015.
Though the report, whose final version will be released in March next year, doesn’t talk about country-specific temperature rise figures, it flagged a number of extreme weather events in many countries, including in India such as cyclone ‘Amphan’, calling it the “the costliest tropical cyclone on record for the North Indian Ocean, with reported economic losses in India of approximately US$14 billion”. Besides ‘Amphan’, the report also noted above normal monsoon which India experienced as one of the two wettest monsoon seasons since 1994.
“The IMD will come out with a similar report for India by February 2021,” climate scientist and secretary in ministry of earth sciences Madhavan Rajeevan told TOI. He had, as a WMO consultant, written its report in 2004 and 2005.
Although the overall warmth of the year is clear, there were variations in temperature anomalies across the globe.The report, which is based on contributions of dozens of international organisations and experts, shows how high-impact events including extreme heat, wildfires and floods, as well as the recordbreaking Atlantic hurricane season, affected millions of people, compounding threats to human health and security and economic stability posed by the Covid-19 pandemic.