Return of El Niño could bring heat records – 20/04/2023 – Environment

A report released this Thursday (20) by the scientific institute Copernicus, linked to the European Union, launches the possibility that the world will reach a new temperature record in 2023 or 2024.

Scientists suggest that after three years of the La Niña weather pattern in the Pacific Ocean, which typically lowers global temperatures slightly, the world will experience a return of El Niño later this year.

“El Niño is normally associated with record temperatures globally. Whether this will happen in 2023 or 2024 remains to be seen, but I think it is more likely. [acontecer] than not,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of Copernicus.

“Globally, average greenhouse gas concentrations for the year as a whole were the highest ever measured by satellite and, based on additional data sources, the highest for at least hundreds of thousands of years,” he says. the text of the document.

“Throughout 2022, carbon dioxide and methane concentrations continued to increase, reaching record levels. While the carbon dioxide increase was comparable to that seen in previous years, the methane increase was significantly higher than the average of the last ten years. “

The institution also warns of the fact that Europe is the continent that suffers most from the increase in temperature caused by climate change. Over the 12 months, Europe had the second warmest year on record last year, while globally, 2022 was only the fifth warmest year.

Furthermore, the European summer of 2022 was the hottest since measurements began more than a hundred years ago. One explanation for this phenomenon is that a significant part of the continent is located in the subarctic and arctic, which are the fastest heating regions on the entire planet.

Data from the report show that since the second half of the 1800s, the world has warmed by 1.2°C. Europe alone, in turn, suffered an increase of 2.2°C.

According to the document, “much of Europe suffered intense and prolonged heat waves last summer; the lack of precipitation, in particular in the southwestern regions during the winter, which then extended to much of the continent, led to a generalized drought in spring and summer”.

“As a result, Portugal declared a severe drought while parts of the Po River dried up completely,” the document says.

“For rivers overall, it was the driest year on record in terms of area affected, with 63% of rivers having below-average flows. Lakes and seas were also affected, with 73% of Europe’s lakes recording above-average temperatures. In Europe’s seas, average sea surface temperatures were the warmest on record, and the Mediterranean Sea began to get much warmer than average temperatures in May, with record marine heat waves during the summer.”

The Copernicus report cites the Paris Agreement as a reminder that every five years, countries review their progress in limiting greenhouse gas emissions.

“The main objective is to contain the increase in the global average temperature near the surface, keeping it well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and to pursue efforts to limit the increase to 1.5°C.”

_{The Planeta em Transe project is supported by the Open Society Foundations.}