2020 set to be one of three hottest years on record despite La Niña's cooling effect, report says
(CNN)Record wildfires. A deadly hurricane season. Arctic sea ice at its lowest ever. Drought. Floods. Heatwaves.Worryingly, 2020 has been unusually hot despite the cooling effect of La Niña. The recurrent climate phenomenon, which developed in August and strengthened in October, is normally associated with below-normal sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean caused by changes in winds, air pressure and rainfall. While La Niña is limited to the Pacific, its effects act to cool the entire planet's temperatures, like natural air conditioning for Earth. But its impact has been more than offset by heat trapped in the atmosphere by greenhouse gasses, the WMO said. The group's secretary general Petteri Taalas said that in the past, unusually warm years -- such as 2016 -- coincided with a strong El Niño event, which is the opposite of La Niña and causes above average sea surface temperatures and thus warmer global temperatures. Not anymore.Read More"Despite the current La Niña conditions, this year has already shown near record heat comparable to the previous record of 2016," Taalas said in a news release accompanying the main report. Melting glaciers are seen from a plane during a summer heat wave on Svalbard archipelago in Norway.The WMO also said that the period between 2011 and 2020 will be the warmest decade on record, with the warmest six years all being since 2015. The trend is likely set to continue. While emissions fell during the spring lockdown, the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere surged to a new record high this year. Taalas said there was now at least a one in five chance of average global temperature temporarily exceeding the pre-industrial levels by 1.5 degree Celsius by 2024 -- a critical threshold the Paris Agreement aims to limit global warming to. The effects of this rapid warming have been felt around the world throughout the year -- from extreme heat and wildfires to floods and a record-breaking Atlantic hurricane season. Taalas summarized 2020 as "yet another extraordinary year for our climate."Millions of people have been forced to leave their homes -- some of them permanently -- because of extreme weather and other events caused or exasperated by climate change. Hundreds have died.Late last year and early this year, Australia suffered what was the worst bushfire season on record. Research has showed that the climate crisis made those fires at least 30% more likely. At least 33 people and an estimated 1 billion animals died in the fires, according to Australia's parliament. Hundreds more died as a result of smoke exposure.Devastating wildfires in the western US left at least 43 people dead this fall. In October, California recorded the first "gigafire" -- a term for a blaze that burns at least a million acres of land -- in modern history.South America's Pantanal, the world's largest tropical wetlands, was on fire for months. This year also brought plenty of evidence for a trend climate scientists have b
(CNN)Record wildfires. A deadly hurricane season. Arctic sea ice at its lowest ever. Drought. Floods. Heatwaves.Worryingly, 2020 has been unusually hot despite the cooling effect of La Niña. The recurrent climate phenomenon, which developed in August and strengthened in October, is normally associated with below-normal sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean caused by changes in winds, air pressure and rainfall. While La Niña is limited to the Pacific, its effects act to cool the entire planet's temperatures, like natural air conditioning for Earth. But its impact has been more than offset by heat trapped in the atmosphere by greenhouse gasses, the WMO said. The group's secretary general Petteri Taalas said that in the past, unusually warm years -- such as 2016 -- coincided with a strong El Niño event, which is the opposite of La Niña and causes above average sea surface temperatures and thus warmer global temperatures. Not anymore.Read More"Despite the current La Niña conditions, this year has already shown near record heat comparable to the previous record of 2016," Taalas said in a news release accompanying the main report. Melting glaciers are seen from a plane during a summer heat wave on Svalbard archipelago in Norway.The WMO also said that the period between 2011 and 2020 will be the warmest decade on record, with the warmest six years all being since 2015. The trend is likely set to continue. While emissions fell during the spring lockdown, the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere surged to a new record high this year. Taalas said there was now at least a one in five chance of average global temperature temporarily exceeding the pre-industrial levels by 1.5 degree Celsius by 2024 -- a critical threshold the Paris Agreement aims to limit global warming to. The effects of this rapid warming have been felt around the world throughout the year -- from extreme heat and wildfires to floods and a record-breaking Atlantic hurricane season. Taalas summarized 2020 as "yet another extraordinary year for our climate."Millions of people have been forced to leave their homes -- some of them permanently -- because of extreme weather and other events caused or exasperated by climate change. Hundreds have died.Late last year and early this year, Australia suffered what was the worst bushfire season on record. Research has showed that the climate crisis made those fires at least 30% more likely. At least 33 people and an estimated 1 billion animals died in the fires, according to Australia's parliament. Hundreds more died as a result of smoke exposure.Devastating wildfires in the western US left at least 43 people dead this fall. In October, California recorded the first "gigafire" -- a term for a blaze that burns at least a million acres of land -- in modern history.South America's Pantanal, the world's largest tropical wetlands, was on fire for months. This year also brought plenty of evidence for a trend climate scientists have b