The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) report for 2022, published this Friday, reveals that glaciers are melting at a dizzying rate and that several indicators of climate change have returned to record levels.
In the annual State of the World’s Climate report, WMO highlights global changes to land, oceans and atmosphere caused by record levels of greenhouse gases, responsible for trapping heat that causes global warming.
The WMO, a UN body, states that “Antarctic sea ice is at its lowest level and some European glaciers are literally melting at record speeds.”
“Glaciers face 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,” WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas was quoted as saying. by the AFP agency.
The melting cannot be stopped “unless a way is created to remove CO2 from the atmosphere,” he added.
According to the WMO, the reference glaciers, those that are the subject of long-term observations, registered 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 suffered record melting due to a combination of little snow in winter, the arrival of dust from the Sahara in March 2022 and heat waves between May and early September, the report highlights.
These glaciers lost 6% of their ice volume between 2021 and 2022, up from a third between 2001 and 2022.
The annual report confirms that the global average temperature in 2022 was 1.15°C higher than that of pre-industrial times (1850-1900) and that the last eight years have been the warmest on record, despite the cooling caused by the phenomenon La Niña weather conditions for three years in a row.
This report also confirms that last year in Europe was marked by summer heat waves which, recalls the WMO, were associated with 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 that recorded its hottest year in 2022. Other countries included Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Ireland, and Belgium.
The authors of the report insist that climate change continues to be responsible for droughts, floods and heat waves and that they are “affecting populations on all continents, causing losses of billions of dollars”.
Although the WMO does not yet have complete figures for 2022 regarding the concentration of greenhouse gases that cause global warming, the UN agency recalled 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 the sea level is rising at a rapid rate, from 2.27 mm per year in the decade 1993-2002 to 4.62 mm per year in the period 2013-2022.
Another problem in the oceans derived from climate change, acidification due to carbon dioxide absorbed by the 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 marine life. warns the WMO.
The results of this report are known after the “State of the European Climate 2022” report, from the Copernicus Climate Change Monitoring Service, indicated on Thursday that last year was the second hottest in Europe on record. , with 0.9 degrees Celsius (ºC). ) above average, while the summer was the hottest in history, with 1.4ºC above average.
This work by Copernicus reveals that temperatures in Europe are rising twice as fast as the global average and this increase is faster than on any other continent, according to today’s announcement.
Last year, the WMO report for 2021 pointed to records in four markers considered key to climate change: greenhouse gas concentrations, sea level rise, temperature and ocean acidification.
Source: TSF
