The world’s climate has reached a major turning point and is set to deliver record-breaking global temperatures in 2015 and 2016, according to a new report from the UK Met Office.
Natural climate cycles in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans are reversing and will amplify the strong manmade-driven global warming, the report concludes. This will change weather patterns around the world including more heatwaves, but it is possible that the UK will actually have cooler summers.
The record for the hottest year was broken in 2014, when heatwaves scorched China, Russia, Australia and parts of South America. But, despite rising greenhouse gas emissions continuing to trap more heat on Earth, the last decade has seen relatively slow warming of air temperatures, dubbed a “pause” in climate change by some.
In fact, global warming had not paused at all. Instead, natural climate cycles led to more of the trapped heat being stored in the oceans. Now, according to the Met Office report, all the signs are that the pause in rising air temperatures is over and the rate of global warming will accelerate fast in coming years.
The warning comes ahead of a crunch UN summit in Paris in November at which the world’s nations must hammer out a deal to halt climate change. Opponents of action to curb climate change have cited the pause as a reason to reject urgent cuts in carbon emissions.
But Professor Rowan Sutton, at the University of Reading and who reviewed the Met Office report, said: “None of the debate around the pause has changed our long term understanding of greenhouse-gas-driven climate change. That is the most fundamental point for Paris. The fact that 2014, 2015 and 2016 look like being among the very warmest years on record is a further reminder about climate change.”
The report analyses the latest data on all the key factors that combine to determine the global climate. The warming caused by carbon emissions is the largest influence and continues to rise.
PHOTO: Manmade-driven global warming and other factors could make this year and next break heat records.
CREDIT: Philippe Huguen/AFP/Getty Images.