WMO State of the Global Climate 2021 report
- November 1, 2021
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN Topics
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WMO State of the Global Climate 2021 report
Subject – Environment
Context – The last seven years are on track to be the warmest on record, according to the provisional WMO State of the Global Climate 2021 report
Concept –
- The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic could not deter the world from emitting greenhouse gases. And now, record atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations in 2021 have propelled the planet into uncharted territory, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
- The last seven years are on track to be the warmest on record, according to the provisional WMO State of the Global Climate 2021 report.
Other facts of report –
- Greenhouse gas concentrations reached new highs in 2020
- The global mean temperature for 2021 (based on data from January-September) was about 1.09°C above the 1850-1900 average
- 2015-2021 will be the warmest years on record
- The upper 2,000-metre of the ocean continued to warm in 2019, reaching a new record high. A preliminary analysis based on seven global data sets suggested that 2020 surpassed the record
- The ocean absorbed around 23 per cent of the annual emissions of anthropogenic CO2 to the atmosphere and so, has become more acidic. Open ocean surface pH declined globally over the last 40 years; it is now the lowest it has been in at least 26,000 years
- As the pH of the ocean decreases, its capacity to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere also declines.
- The mean global mean sea level rise was 2.1 millimeters a year between 1993 and 2002 and 4.4 mm a year between 2013 and 2021, an increase by a factor of two between the periods
- This was mostly due to an accelerated loss of ice mass from glaciers and ice sheets
- On August 14, the rain was observed for several hours at Summit Station, the highest point on the Greenland Ice Sheet (3,216 m). Air temperatures remained above freezing for about nine hours. There is no previous report of rainfall at Summit.
- California reached 54.4°C on July 9, equalling a similar 2020 value as the highest recorded in the world since at least the 1930s
- Conflict, extreme weather events and economic shocks have increased in frequency and intensity in the last 10 years. The compounded effects of these perils, further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, have led to a rise in hunger.