May 26th, 2023: The average worldwide temperature in 2022 was 1.15C higher than it was between 1850 and 1900. Which have been the warmest years so far? Read on!
The United Nations warns that 2023–2027 will almost certainly be the hottest five-year period ever observed as greenhouse gases and El Nino combine their influence to raise temperatures.
All eight of the warmest years ever measured fell between 2015 and 2022, but temperatures are expected to rise much more as climate change quickens.
As per World Meteorological Organization, the warmest eight years have all been since 2015, with 2016, 2019 and 2020 constituting the top three. An exceptionally strong El Niño event occurred in 2016, which contributed to record global temperatures.
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What is El Nino?
Fishermen off the coast of Peru first noticed El Nio when they noticed unusually warm water. Native Peruvians may have given the phenomenon a different name, but Spanish immigrants gave it the English name El Nio, which translates as "the little boy" in English. El Then it was referred to as the Christ Child and was chosen as the name because it frequently occurred around Christmas. El Nio soon expanded beyond simply the warming of coastal surface waters to include irregular and severe climate fluctuations.
The exceptional warming of surface waters in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean is referred to as El Nino. El Nino is the "warm phase" of the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a more extensive phenomena.
El Nino affects local weather from Australia to South America and beyond as well as ocean temperatures, the strength and speed of ocean currents, the condition of coastal fisheries, and more. Unpredictably, El Nino events happen every two to seven years. But unlike ocean tides, which follow a known pattern, El Nino is not a regular cycle.
Although climate change has contributed to severe temperatures even in years without the El Nino phenomena, 2016 was the warmest year on record so far.
The eight hottest years on record occurred in the past eight years, which is a reflection of the longer-term warming trend caused by greenhouse gas emissions.
El Nino-driven temperatures, according to Friederike Otto, senior lecturer at Imperial College London's Grantham Institute, might exacerbate the effects of climate change that nations are currently experiencing, such as severe heatwaves, drought, and wildfires.
"If El Niño does develop, there is a good chance 2023 will be even hotter than 2016 – considering the world has continued to warm as humans continue to burn fossil fuels," Mr. Otto said.
In 2022, Europe saw the warmest summer on record, while Pakistan suffered catastrophic flooding brought on by climate change, and Antarctic sea ice levels reached a record low in February.
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According to the UN's World Meteorological Organisation, there is a majority likelihood that one of the next five years would see global temperatures exceed the more aggressive objective outlined in the Paris climate agreements.
The Paris Agreement is a binding global climate change agreement. At the UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris, France, on December 12, 2015, it was approved by 196 Parties. On November 4, 2016, it became effective. Its main objective is to pursue measures to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and keep "the increase in global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels.
The WMO said, “There is a 98-percent likelihood that at least one of the next five years, and the five-year period as a whole, will be the warmest on record.” The average worldwide temperature in 2022 was 1.15C higher than it was between 1850 and 1900. With a range of 1.1C to 1.8C predicted for each of those five years, the WMO stated that there is a 66 percent likelihood that annual global surface temperatures would surpass 1.5C over pre-industrial levels for at least any of the years 2023–2027.
An upsurge El Nino is anticipated to occur in the upcoming months, which will work in conjunction with human-caused climate change to raise global temperatures to levels never before witnessed. El Nino is the term used to describe the widespread increase in surface temperatures in the eastern and central equatorial Pacific Ocean. Typically, the meteorological phenomena happens every two to seven years.
With the exception of Alaska, South Africa, South Asia, and certain areas of Australia, temperatures in 2023 are predicted to be higher than the average for the period between 1991 and 2020 in virtually all regions, according to the WMO.
