2019 on course to be the second or third warmest year on record: Report

NEW DELHI: The year 2019 is on course to be the second or third warmest year on record, said the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) while releasing its provisional statement on the ‘State of the Global Climate’ on sidelines of the UN climate conference (COP25) in Madrid on Tuesday.


The provisional report also took note of a number of record high temperatures in India, including 48 degree Celsius at New Delhi Airport on 10 June and flagged how such examples at several other places with higher-than-usual recorded temperatures in the country and elsewhere in the world were consistent with a warm year globally.

The report said the global average temperature in 2019 (January to October) was about 1.1 degree Celsius above the pre-industrial period (1850-1900).

Though it may not breach the level of 2016, the average temperatures for the five-year (2015-2019) and ten-year (2010-2019) are “almost certain to be the highest on record”. The year 2016, which began with an exceptionally strong El Niño, remains the warmest year.

The year 2019, however, witnessed national records in many countries in Europe. In France, a national record of 46.0°C (1.9°C above the previous record) was set on 28 June. National records were also set in Germany (42.6°C), the Netherlands (40.7°C), Belgium (41.8°C), Luxembourg (40.8°C) and the United Kingdom (38.7°C), with the heat also extending into the Nordic countries, where Helsinki had its highest temperature on record (33.2°C on 28 July).

Noting that the year 2019 concludes a decade of exceptional global heat, retreating ice and record sea levels driven by greenhouse gases (GHG) from human activities, the report highlighted how the world is fast exhausting its carbon budget by consistently increasing concentration of GHG in the atmosphere.

It said, “Concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere hit a record level of 407.8 parts per million (ppm) in 2018 and continued to rise in 2019”.

A carbon budget can be defined as a tolerable quantity of GHG emissions. According to the United Nations IPCC, the GHG concentrations must stabilise at 450 parts per million (ppm) CO2 if the planet is to have a 50% chance of avoiding a dangerous global average temperature rise of 2 degrees Celsius or more above pre-industrial levels.

Records shows that the global CO2 concentration increased from 277 ppm in 1750 to 405 ppm in 2017 (up 46%). It further increased to 407.8 ppm in 2018. Scientists have estimated that the concentration of GHG is expected to increase to 410 ppm in 2019 - it means the world will exhaust its carbon budget soon if the emissions continue without check.

“If we do not take urgent climate action now, then we are heading for a temperature increase of more than 3 degree Celsius by the end of the century, with ever more harmful impacts on human well-being,” said WMO secretary-general Petteri Taalas.

Though its final report will be released in March next year, the provisional one pointed that the sea level rise has accelerated since the start of satellite measurements in 1993 because of the melting of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica.

The report devotes an extensive section to weather and climate impacts on human health, food security, migration, ecosystems and marine life. It said, “Climate variability and extreme weather events are among the key drivers of the recent rise in global hunger and one of the leading causes of severe crises”.

It noted that more than 10 million new internal displacements were recorded between January and June 2019, 7 million being triggered by hazard events such as Cyclone Idai in south-east Africa, Cyclone Fani in south Asia, Hurricane Dorian in the Caribbean, flooding in Iran, the Philippines and Ethiopia, generating acute humanitarian and protection needs.