The United Nations warned Friday that El Nino might make this year hotter than the record-breaking 2023, as it urged significant emissions cuts to tackle climate change.
According to the UN’s World Meteorological Organisation, new monthly temperature records were established every month between June and December, and this trend is expected to continue due to the warmer El Nino weather phenomena.
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimated that 2024 will be one-third warmer than 2023, with a 99 percent confidence that it will be one of the five warmest years on record.
NASA climatologist Gavin Schmidt, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said the odds were significantly higher.
“I put it at about 50-50: 50 percent chance it’ll be warmer, 50 percent chance it will be slightly cooler”, he said, adding that there were clues of mysterious alterations to Earth’s climatic systems that would take additional data to confirm or reject.
The UN’s WMO weather and climate organization stated that July and August of last year were the two hottest months ever recorded, and formally certified that 2023 was the warmest year on record by a huge margin.
As per the World Meteorological Organisation, the worldwide average temperature in 2023 was 1.45 degrees Celsius higher than in 1850-1900.
Celeste Saulo, the WMO’s new secretary-general, has warned that El Nino, which began in mid-2023, is projected to increase temperatures even higher in 2024.
The naturally occurring climate pattern, which is frequently related to higher heat worldwide, normally raises global temperatures in the year after its formation.
“The shift from cooling La Nina to warming El Nino by the middle of 2023 is reflected in the temperature rise”, she went on to say.
“Given that El Nino usually has the biggest impact on global temperatures after it peaks, 2024 could be even hotter”, she added.
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