Global average temperature the highest on record, with 90% being absorbed by the oceans
The Ecologist reports, 28th November 2015: As climate negotiators gather in Paris for the Conference of the Parties (COP21), the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) says that a combination of human and natural causes will make 2015 temperatures the hottest ever — half way to the 2°C ‘safety threshold’, with ocean surface temperatures at the highest level since measurements began.
It is probable that the 1°C threshold will be crossed. This is all bad news for the planet. That’s half way to the 2°C threshold that governments have agreed as the maximum warming tolerable if the Earth is to avert dangerously unpredictable climate change.
The WMO issued its provisional statement on the status of the climate in 2015, and the additional five-year analysis for 2011-2015, to inform negotiations at the COP21 UN climate change conference.
The negotiators’ main task at COP21 in will be to reach an agreement that will take the world closer to reaching the 2°C target. There is no prospect that they will reach the target itself, but they may make significant progress towards it.
Many experts argue that 2°C is a ‘political’ threshold, with little scientific justification, and some influential voices say the target should be as low as 1.5°C. These include some of the states most threatened by climate change.
The WMO’s preliminary estimate, based on data from January to October, shows that the global average surface temperature for 2015 so far is around 0.73°C above the 1961-1990 average of 14°C, and approximately 1°C above the pre-industrial 1880-1899 period. The global average sea-surface temperature, which set a record last year, is likely to equal or surpass that record in 2015.
Worryingly, most of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases is going into the oceans, not the atmosphere: “The oceans have been absorbing more than 90% of the energy that has accumulated in the climate system from human emissions of greenhouse gases, resulting in higher temperatures and sea levels” said the WMO.
Source: The Ecologist, 28th November 2015. For the full text, see
www.theecologist.org/News/news_round_up/2986470/wmo_record_warming_rises_into_danger_zone.html
