UN: Nightmarish prediction for 2024 – “It may be the hottest year of all time”

Concerning is his warning about 2024, as he says that there may be so high that they will make it the hottest year of all time. “There is a great chance in 2024 that it will present in turn very high temperatures, as the year that passed just completed a decade with record high temperatures, pushing the planet to the brink of disaster, the UN warned. “In 2023 he established a new record for each indicator,” said the Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organization (OMM/WMO) Celeste Saulo, presenting the climate report. A new report by the World Weather Organization, the UN agency, shows that a record of temperatures were shot down last year, and in some cases were launched, in terms of greenhouse gas levels, surface temperatures, heat content (energy absorbed and stored) and ocean acidification, sea level rise, the extent of Antarctic sea ice and the decline of glaciers. “We can’t say it for sure but “I would say that there is a great chance in 2024 that he will re-cast the record of 2023”, said Omar Badur, head of climate monitoring service in the World Weather Organization, during an interview Press, on the occasion of the presentation of the annual climate report. The decade that has just passed is the warmest ever recorded, causing in 2023 an unprecedented meltdown of ice, the UN warned today. “Climate changes are not limited to temperatures only. It is what we saw in 2023, mainly the unprecedented ocean warming, the retreat of glaciers and the loss of sea ice in Antarctica, which cause the greatest concern,” said the Secretary General of OMM, commenting on the publication of the annual climate report. The planet is “on the brink of destruction” while “the contamination of fossil fuels causes unprecedented climatic chaos”, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned in a video message, while appreciating that “it is still time to put a lifeline on populations and the planet”. The report confirms that 2023 was the hottest year ever recorded, with an average earth surface temperature of 1.45° C above the reference level of the pre-industrial era. “Every fraction of one degree of global warming has an effect on the future of life on Earth”, the UN chief warned. ‘Red alarm’ The climate crisis is the decisive challenge facing humanity and is “intrepidly linked to the crisis of inequalities, as evidenced by increasing food insecurity and the loss of biodiversity,” said OMM’s general secretary. Waves of heat, floods, droughts, uncontrolled fires and the rapid increase in tropical cyclones sow “the misery and chaos”, upsetting the daily lives of millions of people and causing financial losses of several billion dollars, OMM warns. This is the hottest decade (2014-2023) ever observed, surpassing the average of the 1850–1990 period of 1.20 degrees Celsius. The increase in global temperature in the long term is due to an increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which reached record levels in 2022. The advent of the El Niño phenomenon in mid-2023 also contributed to the rapid rise of temperatures, according to OMM. “El Niño weakens but remains here. For the next three months we expect temperatures higher than normal for the season levels in most of the planet,” Saulo warned. “We were never so close — although temporarily at the moment — to the lower limit set at 1.5° C in the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.” “The global weather community warns the world and rings the alarm of danger: we are on a red alert,” he said. Heat waves in the oceans and melting ice last year, almost a third of all oceans were under the influence of a sea heat. By the end of 2023, more than 90% of the planet’s oceans had experienced heat waves sometime during the year, according to OMM. Increasing the frequency and intensity of sea exhaust waves has a profound negative impact on marine ecosystems and coral reefs. Also, the average sea level worldwide reached a record level in 2023, reflecting the continuation of ocean warming (thermal expansion) as well as melting glaciers and ice layers. Concerning sign is that the rate of increase of this average level in the last decade (2014-2023) is more than twice that of the first decade (1993-2002). Reference glaciers across the planet have undergone the largest retreat recorded since 1950, after extreme meltdown in the western part of North America and Europe, according to preliminary data. “There is, however, ‘a ray of hope’, according to OMM: renewable energy production potential in 2023 increased by almost 50% on an annual basis, the highest rate observed in the last two decades. That is why Saulo said, investing in the energy transition to Africa, can benefit not only Africa but the whole world. Therefore, in my opinion, we have a solution here.”