The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) report for 2022, released this Friday, reveals that glaciers are melting at a dramatic rate and several climate change indicators have returned to record levels.
In its annual report on the state of the global climate, WMO highlights global changes in land, oceans and atmosphere caused by record levels of greenhouse gases, responsible for heat retention resulting in global warming.
The WMO, a UN body, states that “Antarctic sea ice is at its lowest level on record and some European glaciers are literally melting at record rates”.
“Glaciers are at increasing risk because the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) is already very high and sea level rise is likely to continue for thousands of years,” said WMO Secretary General Petteri Taalas, quoted by the AFP bureau.
Melting cannot be stopped “unless a way is created to remove CO2 from the atmosphere”he added.
According to the WMO, the reference glaciers, which are the subject of long-term observations, recorded an average thickness change of more than -1.3 meters between October 2021 and October 2022, which corresponds to a much greater loss than the average of the last decade.
Glaciers in the European Alps melted due to a combination of little snow in the winter, the arrival of dust from the Sahara in March 2022 and the heat waves recorded between May and early September, the report highlights.
these glaciers lost 6% of their ice volume between 2021 and 2022, compared to a third between 2001 and 2022.
Climate change is responsible for floods and heat waves. They “affect populations on all continents”
The annual report confirms that the average global temperature in 2022 was 1.15 °C higher than in pre-industrial times (1850-1900) and that the past eight years have been the warmest on record, despite the cooling caused by the La Niña weather phenomenon for three years in a row.
This report also confirms that last year in Europe was marked by summer heat waves, which, the WMO recalls, were accompanied by 4,600 deaths in Spain, 4,500 in Germany, 2,800 in the United Kingdom, 2,800 in France and 1,000 in Portugal.
Portugal was one of many countries with the warmest year in 2022. Other countries included Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Ireland and Belgium.
The report’s authors emphasize that climate change continues to be responsible for droughts, floods and heat waves, and that they “affect populations on all continents and cause billions of dollars in losses.”
While the WMO still does not have full figures for 2022 on the concentration of greenhouse gases that cause global warming, the UN organization reminded that record levels were reached in 2021.
Carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, reached 415.7 parts per million in 2021 (149% more than in the pre-industrial era), while methane reached 1.9 parts per million (262% more) and nitrous oxide rose to 0.33 parts per million (124% more).
The Geneva-based organization further noted that sea levels are rising at a rapid rate, from 2.27 mm per year in the 1993-2002 decade to 4.62 mm per year in the 2013-2022 period.
Another problem in the oceans due to climate change, acidification from carbon dioxide absorbed by water, has caused the surface pH of the open ocean to reach its lowest level in 26,000 years, which could have serious consequences for life in sea, WMO warns.
The results of this report come after Thursday’s “State of the European Climate 2022” report, from the Copernicus Climate Change Monitoring Service, indicated that last year was Europe’s second warmest year on record, with 0.9 degrees Celsius (ºC). ) above average, while the summer was the warmest on record, with 1.4ºC above average.
This Copernicus work shows that temperatures in Europe are rising twice as fast as the global average and this increase is faster than any other continent, according to today’s announcement.
Last year, the WMO report for 2021 pointed to records in four markers considered critical to climate change: greenhouse gas concentrations, sea level rise, temperature and ocean acidification.
News updated at 2:30 PM
Source: DN
