A UK Met Office forecast claims that 2016 is set to be the warmest year ever recorded.
2016 would be the third consecutive year that global temperature records would be broken successively. Scientists claimed that the rise in the global average temperature next year would be driven by the peaking of the El Nino weather phenomenon aided by climate change.
This forecast follows barely a few days after 195 nations agreed to a historic deal to fight global warming at a UN summit in Paris. The countries vowed to keep the world’s temperature rise under 2C, with an ambition to restrict the rise to 1.5C.
The global average temperature in 2016 will be 1.14C above pre-industrial temperatures, the Met Office forecast indicates. The Met Office said there was just a 5% chance the global average temperature in 2016 would be below that in 2015.
“The vast majority of the warming is global warming, but the icing on the cake is the big El Niño event,” said Prof Adam Scaife, head of monthly to decadal prediction at the Met Office.
Global weather is widely affected by El Niño which is a natural cycle of warming in the Pacific Ocean. The El Nino’s current phase is the biggest since 1998 and is peaking now. The global temperature effects take time to spread around the globe.
“We expect the peak warming from El Niño in the 2016 figures,” said Scaife.
Combined with natural variability, the rising temperatures are driven by global warming. This enhances the potential for extreme weather events,
“When variability adds to the underlying warming, it can give impacts that have never been seen before,” said Scaife.
China, Russia, Australia, the Middle East and parts of South America have seen heatwaves in the last two years. it is estimated that there is a 40% chance that the recent floods in the northwest of England were cause by climate change.
However in the last decade there has been a relatively slow warming of air temperatures despite rising greenhouse gas emissions trapping ever more heat on Earth. Many scientists have dubbed this as a “pause” in climate change.
Others however claim that global warming had not paused at all, more of the trapped heat being stored in the oceans by the natural climate cycles.
The rate of global warming will accelerate fast in coming years and all the signs are that the period of slower rises in air temperatures is over, claims the Met Office. 2014 was the first year the world passed 1C of warming above pre-industrial levels.
It is expected that El Niño would wane during 2016 and the run of back-to-back records from 2014-16 is most likely not to continue indefinitely, says the UK MET Office.
“But the current situation shows how global warming can combine with smaller, natural fluctuations to push our climate to levels of warmth which are unprecedented in the data records,” said a Met Office statement.
(Source:www.theguardian.com)
2016 would be the third consecutive year that global temperature records would be broken successively. Scientists claimed that the rise in the global average temperature next year would be driven by the peaking of the El Nino weather phenomenon aided by climate change.
This forecast follows barely a few days after 195 nations agreed to a historic deal to fight global warming at a UN summit in Paris. The countries vowed to keep the world’s temperature rise under 2C, with an ambition to restrict the rise to 1.5C.
The global average temperature in 2016 will be 1.14C above pre-industrial temperatures, the Met Office forecast indicates. The Met Office said there was just a 5% chance the global average temperature in 2016 would be below that in 2015.
“The vast majority of the warming is global warming, but the icing on the cake is the big El Niño event,” said Prof Adam Scaife, head of monthly to decadal prediction at the Met Office.
Global weather is widely affected by El Niño which is a natural cycle of warming in the Pacific Ocean. The El Nino’s current phase is the biggest since 1998 and is peaking now. The global temperature effects take time to spread around the globe.
“We expect the peak warming from El Niño in the 2016 figures,” said Scaife.
Combined with natural variability, the rising temperatures are driven by global warming. This enhances the potential for extreme weather events,
“When variability adds to the underlying warming, it can give impacts that have never been seen before,” said Scaife.
China, Russia, Australia, the Middle East and parts of South America have seen heatwaves in the last two years. it is estimated that there is a 40% chance that the recent floods in the northwest of England were cause by climate change.
However in the last decade there has been a relatively slow warming of air temperatures despite rising greenhouse gas emissions trapping ever more heat on Earth. Many scientists have dubbed this as a “pause” in climate change.
Others however claim that global warming had not paused at all, more of the trapped heat being stored in the oceans by the natural climate cycles.
The rate of global warming will accelerate fast in coming years and all the signs are that the period of slower rises in air temperatures is over, claims the Met Office. 2014 was the first year the world passed 1C of warming above pre-industrial levels.
It is expected that El Niño would wane during 2016 and the run of back-to-back records from 2014-16 is most likely not to continue indefinitely, says the UK MET Office.
“But the current situation shows how global warming can combine with smaller, natural fluctuations to push our climate to levels of warmth which are unprecedented in the data records,” said a Met Office statement.
(Source:www.theguardian.com)