‘Climate impacts will become increasingly harmful’: World could see 1.5°C of warming in next five years, warns WMO

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on Monday (May 9, 2022) warned that there is a “50:50 chance” of the annual average global temperature temporarily reaching 1.5 °C above the pre-industrial level for at least one of the next five years.

In a new climate update issued by the specialised agency of the United Nations for meteorology (weather and climate), the WMO said that there is a “93% likelihood” of at least one year between 2022-2026 becoming the warmest on record and dislodging 2016 from the top ranking.

“The chance of the five-year average for 2022-2026 being higher than the last five years (2017-2021) is also 93%,” according to the Global Annual to Decadal Climate Update, produced by the United Kingdom’s Met Office, the WMO lead centre for such predictions.

It also stated that the chance of temporarily exceeding 1.5°C has risen steadily since 2015 when it was close to zero.

“For the years between 2017 and 2021, there was a 10% chance of exceedance. That probability has increased to nearly 50% for the 2022-2026 period,” the WMO said in a statement.

“This study shows – with a high level of scientific skill – that we are getting measurably closer to temporarily reaching the lower target of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. The 1.5°C figure is not some random statistic. It is rather an indicator of the point at which climate impacts will become increasingly harmful for people and indeed the entire planet,” said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.

World leaders, notably, have pledged under the 2015 Paris Agreement to prevent crossing the long-term 1.5C threshold – measured as a multi-decadal average – but so far have fallen short on cutting climate-warming emissions.

Today’s activities and current policies have the world on track to warm by about 3.2C by the end of the century.

“For as long as we continue to emit greenhouse gases, temperatures will continue to rise. And alongside that, our oceans will continue to become warmer and more acidic, sea ice and glaciers will continue to melt, sea level will continue to rise and our weather will become more extreme. Arctic warming is disproportionately high and what happens in the Arctic affects all of us,” added Taalas.

As per the provisional WMO report on the State of the Global Climate, the global average temperature was 1.1 °C above the pre-industrial baseline in 2021.

The key findings of the annual update include:
The annual mean global near-surface temperature for each year between 2022 and 2026 is predicted to be between 1.1 °C and 1.7 °C higher than preindustrial levels (the average over the years 1850-1900).

The chance of global near-surface temperature exceeding 1.5 °C above preindustrial levels at least one year between 2022 and 2026 is about as likely as not (48%). There is only a small chance (10%) of the five-year mean exceeding this threshold.

The chance of at least one year between 2022 and 2026 exceeding the warmest year on record, 2016, is 93%. The chance of the five-year mean for 2022-2026 being higher than the last five years (2017-2021) is also 93%.

The Arctic temperature anomaly, compared to the 1991-2020 average, is predicted to be more than three times as large as the global mean anomaly when averaged over the next five northern hemisphere extended winters.