The Japan Times - World sees first 12 months above 1.5C warming level: climate monitor

EUR -
AED 3.814778
AFN 77.377531
ALL 98.843556
AMD 411.25305
ANG 1.874052
AOA 948.777635
ARS 1094.561153
AUD 1.657815
AWG 1.872115
AZN 1.767581
BAM 1.952747
BBD 2.099477
BDT 126.342465
BGN 1.955105
BHD 0.391523
BIF 3077.928421
BMD 1.038621
BND 1.40268
BOB 7.185765
BRL 6.028266
BSD 1.039854
BTN 90.919972
BWP 14.432158
BYN 3.402947
BYR 20356.974081
BZD 2.088694
CAD 1.490115
CDF 2965.263327
CHF 0.937937
CLF 0.026273
CLP 1008.209985
CNY 7.565625
CNH 7.570511
COP 4337.873839
CRC 527.664841
CUC 1.038621
CUP 27.52346
CVE 110.091813
CZK 25.179291
DJF 185.166928
DKK 7.460239
DOP 64.278264
DZD 140.454806
EGP 52.253442
ERN 15.579317
ETB 131.177593
FJD 2.402639
FKP 0.855395
GBP 0.831965
GEL 2.901801
GGP 0.855395
GHS 16.013962
GIP 0.855395
GMD 74.7806
GNF 8989.771475
GTQ 8.039353
GYD 217.549863
HKD 8.088454
HNL 26.640929
HRK 7.664554
HTG 136.014723
HUF 406.40726
IDR 16964.837482
ILS 3.676306
IMP 0.855395
INR 90.911651
IQD 1362.170261
IRR 43725.94883
ISK 146.788212
JEP 0.855395
JMD 164.201691
JOD 0.736801
JPY 158.35025
KES 134.191991
KGS 90.827335
KHR 4172.140793
KMF 491.215852
KPW 934.759129
KRW 1503.954114
KWD 0.320405
KYD 0.866537
KZT 537.524411
LAK 22611.646924
LBP 93117.61502
LKR 310.444623
LRD 206.922494
LSL 19.362241
LTL 3.066778
LVL 0.628251
LYD 5.107915
MAD 10.408027
MDL 19.465379
MGA 4880.480788
MKD 61.517367
MMK 3373.400905
MNT 3529.2347
MOP 8.341259
MRU 41.457383
MUR 48.493325
MVR 16.005066
MWK 1803.063569
MXN 21.377575
MYR 4.597454
MZN 66.378033
NAD 19.362241
NGN 1556.591928
NIO 38.179518
NOK 11.68397
NPR 145.470757
NZD 1.833222
OMR 0.3999
PAB 1.039874
PEN 3.860038
PGK 4.15916
PHP 60.364146
PKR 289.722814
PLN 4.20437
PYG 8193.032511
QAR 3.791535
RON 4.975308
RSD 117.075413
RUB 101.779981
RWF 1449.915093
SAR 3.895573
SBD 8.765359
SCR 14.943146
SDG 624.200748
SEK 11.348639
SGD 1.403338
SHP 0.855395
SLE 23.779205
SLL 21779.365631
SOS 594.265151
SRD 36.460802
STD 21497.360353
SVC 9.098687
SYP 13504.151873
SZL 19.351372
THB 34.96466
TJS 11.349954
TMT 3.64556
TND 3.301257
TOP 2.432551
TRY 37.316354
TTD 7.042921
TWD 34.118716
TZS 2644.619134
UAH 43.280315
UGX 3827.016499
USD 1.038621
UYU 45.248818
UZS 13502.074671
VES 61.680527
VND 26219.990341
VUV 123.307186
WST 2.908998
XAF 654.926723
XAG 0.032113
XAU 0.000362
XCD 2.806925
XDR 0.797545
XOF 653.80995
XPF 119.331742
YER 258.564709
ZAR 19.289547
ZMK 9348.837714
ZMW 29.140877
ZWL 334.435579
  • BCC

    -0.8200

    124.75

    -0.66%

  • SCS

    0.2500

    11.56

    +2.16%

  • RIO

    0.1700

    61.37

    +0.28%

  • NGG

    0.8100

    62.67

    +1.29%

  • JRI

    0.1900

    12.83

    +1.48%

  • CMSC

    0.1600

    23.5

    +0.68%

  • BCE

    0.5000

    24.9

    +2.01%

  • RBGPF

    65.3000

    65.3

    +100%

  • AZN

    1.9750

    70.935

    +2.78%

  • GSK

    2.8600

    37.7

    +7.59%

  • BTI

    0.8700

    41.1

    +2.12%

  • RELX

    0.9100

    50.77

    +1.79%

  • RYCEF

    0.0200

    7.52

    +0.27%

  • CMSD

    0.1400

    23.82

    +0.59%

  • BP

    0.0300

    31.67

    +0.09%

  • VOD

    0.0700

    8.27

    +0.85%

World sees first 12 months above 1.5C warming level: climate monitor
World sees first 12 months above 1.5C warming level: climate monitor / Photo: Michael Dantas - AFP/File

World sees first 12 months above 1.5C warming level: climate monitor

Earth has endured 12 months of temperatures 1.5C hotter than the pre-industrial era for the first time on record, Europe's climate monitor said Thursday, in what scientists called a "warning to humanity".

Text size:

Storms, drought and fire have lashed the planet as climate change, supercharged by the naturally-occurring El Nino phenomenon, stoked record warming in 2023, making it likely the hottest in 100,000 years.

The extremes have continued into 2024, Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) service said, confirming that February 2023 to January 2024 saw warming of 1.52 degrees Celsius above the 19th century benchmark.

That is a grave foretaste of the Paris climate deal's crucial 1.5C warming threshold, but it does not signal a permanent breach of the limit, which is measured over decades, scientists said.

"We are touching 1.5C and we see the cost, the social costs and economic costs," said Johan Rockstrom, of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

"1.5 is a very big number and it hurts us really badly in terms of heat waves, droughts, floods, reinforced storms, water scarcity across the entire world. That is what 2023 has taught us."

Recent months have seen an onslaught of extremes across the planet, including devastating drought gripping the Amazon basin, sweltering winter temperatures in parts of southern Europe, deadly wildfires in South America and record rainfall in California.

"It is clearly a warning to humanity that we are moving faster than expected towards the agreed upon 1.5C limit that we signed," Rockstrom told AFP, adding that temperatures will likely fall back somewhat after the El Nino comes to an end.

Copernicus said last month was the hottest January on record -- the eighth month in a row of historic high monthly temperatures -- with temperatures 1.66C warmer overall than an estimate of the January average for 1850-1900, the pre-industrial reference period.

"2024 starts with another record-breaking month -- not only is it the warmest January on record but we have also just experienced a 12-month period of more than 1.5C above the pre-industrial reference period," said Samantha Burgess, C3S Deputy Director.

Planet-heating emissions, mainly from the burning of fossil fuels, have continued to rise in recent years, when scientists say they need to fall by almost half this decade and the UN's IPCC climate panel has warned that the world will likely crash through 1.5C in the early 2030s.

"The succession of very hot years is bad news for both nature and people who are feeling the impacts of these extreme years," Joeri Rogelj, professor of climate science and policy at Imperial College London, told AFP.

"Unless global emissions are urgently brought down to zero, the world will soon fly past the safety limits set out in the Paris climate agreement."

- 'Off the charts' -

Copernicus said January temperatures were well above average in north-western Africa, the Middle East and central Asia, as well as eastern Canada and southern Europe.

But they were below average in parts of northern Europe, western Canada and the central region of the United States.

And while parts of the world experienced an unusually wet January, swathes of North America, the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula saw drier conditions.

In Chile, which has struggled with a brutal summer heatwave and drought, the dry conditions have helped stoke wildfires, Copernicus said.

Those conditions have continued into February, with fires that started on Friday whipping into a deadly inferno that tore through neighbourhoods in the coastal Valparaiso region over the weekend leaving more than 130 people dead.

The El Nino, which warms the sea surface in the southern Pacific leading to hotter weather globally, has begun to weaken in the equatorial Pacific, Copernicus said.

Meanwhile, sea surface temperatures have continued to smash records.

Rockstrom said 2023 "is a year where ocean dynamics have simply gone berserk, it's off the charts".

Oceans cover 70 percent of the planet and have kept the Earth's surface liveable by absorbing 90 percent of the excess heat produced by the carbon pollution from human activity since the dawn of the industrial age.

Hotter oceans mean more moisture in the atmosphere, leading to increasingly erratic weather, like fierce winds and powerful rain.

M.Sugiyama--JT