Last eight years are the warmest since the records began

The last eight years, between 2015 and 2022, will be the warmest on record. This is reported by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in a new preliminary report, just before the climate summit COP27 starts. Extreme heat waves, droughts and floods have already affected millions of people this year and cost billions.

The signs and impact of climate change are becoming increasingly dramatic, the UN organization emphasizes. The rate at which the sea level is melting has doubled since 1993, and since January 2020, the sea level has risen by almost 10 millimeters, a record. There is also evidence that the glaciers in Europe are melting more than ever: the ice became 3 to 4 meters thinner in the Alps, and in Switzerland the volume of glacier ice decreased by more than a third between 2001 and 2022. This year, for the first time, no snow survived the summer season in Switzerland, even on the highest peaks.

The global average temperature for this year is currently estimated to be about 1.15 degrees above the pre-industrial level of 1850-1900. The eight years between 2015 and 2022 will probably be the warmest years ever, even if the weather phenomenon La Niña causes relatively ‘low’ temperatures. The ten-year average for the period 2013-2022 is estimated at +1.14 degrees, for the period 2011-2020 it was still +1.09 degrees.

‘The greater the warming, the worse the impact. We now have such high CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere that the warming of just 1.5 degrees from the Paris Agreement is hardly feasible, ” said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas. ‘It is already too late for many glaciers and the melting will continue for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, with a major impact on water safety.”And sea level rise poses a major risk to coastal residents and lower-lying countries,” he says.

“Far too often, those least responsible for climate change suffer the most, as we saw with the terrible floods in Pakistan and the deadly, prolonged drought in the Horn of Africa,” Taalas said. “But even well-prepared countries have been hit by extremes this year, such as the extreme heat waves and drought in large parts of Europe and southern China.’

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the report, in a video message shown at the climate summit, a ” chronicle of the climate chaos.” He calls on COP27 governments to respond to the planet’s’ distress signal ‘ with ambitious, credible actions.