ENVIRONMENT: Global Temperature Approaches Record High

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Dec 20 2001 (IPS) - The global temperature rose again this year, the second warmest year on record, and will continue to climb, according to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).

The average temperature for 2001 was 0.42 degrees celsius above the 1961-1990 average, the United Nations agency said in its annual statement on the status of the global climate.

The warmest year since 1860 was 1998, according to WMO records.

This year’s higher annual average was partly due to the end of the La Niña weather phenomenon, which cooled the warm waters of the equatorial Pacific in 1999 and 2000.

The average temperature will continue to rise steadily over the next few years, said Ken Davidson, the director of the WMO global climate programme.

The cyclical El Niño weather phenomenon, which precedes La Niña, is expected to make a new appearance within the next three to six months, although milder than in 1997 and 1998, when it caused heavy rainfall and drought in various parts of the world.

This year’s records confirm the existence of a global warming trend, which has brought a 0.6 degree increase in the average temperature over the past century, said WMO Deputy Secretary- General Michel Jarraud.

Weather conditions this year were characterised by extreme temperatures. For example, England experienced the hottest October since records began to be kept 343 years ago.

Before that, winter temperatures plunged in Mongolia and Russia. In Siberia, temperatures dropped to around 60 degrees below zero for a two-week period in early January. And more than 100 people died of hypothermia in Moscow.

Northern India also suffered extreme cold in January, which left a death toll of at least 130, while cold temperatures and snowfall killed several people in the Bolivian cities of La Paz, El Alto and Tarija in late June.

The number of hurricanes and tropical storms in the north Atlantic basin this year was higher than average, with 15 named storms registered – five more than average and the same number as in 2000.

In early November, Hurricane Michelle caused severe damages to the coffee harvest in Jamaica before continuing on to Cuba, where it claimed five lives and caused more material damages than any storm since 1952.

The unusually heavy rains that fell in Mozambique and Zambia in the early part of the year devastated crops and left more than 200 dead and hundreds homeless.

By contrast, the drought that hit south and central Asia in 1998 continued this year, affecting a broad area that included Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Since 1998, rainfall in that region during the November to April rainy season has been 55 percent below average. A number of people were killed in Pakistan in early May when temperatures soared to 50 degrees.

Brazil also suffered severe drought during the southern hemisphere summer and autumn. Although the situation improved in November, the hydroelectric plants that supply Brazil’s most populous regions were affected by low water levels.

The WMO noted that scientific researchers have gathered sufficient evidence to demonstrate that global warming is caused by human action. The researchers sitting on the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warn that greenhouse gas emissions, especially carbon dioxide, are the cause of global warming.

Most greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) by industry and vehicles.

Jarraud admitted that there have been episodes of global warming in the past, although he said knowledge of those earlier episodes was not precise, because the data is based on observations of tree growth or from studying samples taken from glaciars.

However, temperatures in recent years have risen unusually fast, compared to increases that occurred 4,000 or 5,000 years ago, the WMO official said.

Global warming will raise the temperature of the earth’s oceans, ice will melt, and the water level will rise, said Jarraud.

The sea level is projected to rise between 15 and 90 cms in the 21st century. However, that forecast is uncertain, because no one can predict what will occur in the future regarding greenhouse gas emissions, said Jarraud.

Many of the world’s large coastal cities, especially in developing countries, will be the areas most vulnerable to high seas, he warned. Other problems are erosion, caused by the rise in the level of the oceans, and the leaking of salt water into the water table.

Early this month, the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned of the impact of climate change on the health of the world population. Of the roughly 80,000 deaths a year caused worldwide by natural disasters, 95 percent occur in developing countries, said the UN agency.