2025-2029 Period Will Be Warmer Than 1.5C : WMO

The World Meteorological Organization says there is a 70% chance the global average temperature in the five years 2025-2029 , will be more than 1.5C hotter than pre-industrial times. The 1.5C threshold is symbolically important, as all governments agreed in the 2015 Paris climate agreement to try to limit global warming to that level. Global climate predictions show temperatures are expected to continue at or near record levels in the next five years, increasing climate risks and impacts on societies, economies and sustainable development, according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

“We have just experienced the ten warmest years on record. Unfortunately, this WMO report provides no sign of respite over the coming years, and this means that there will be a growing negative impact on our economies, our daily lives, our ecosystems and our planet,” said WMO Deputy Secretary-General Ko Barrett. “Continued climate monitoring and prediction is essential to provide decision-makers with science-based tools and information to help us adapt,” she said.

The Highlights of the report are-

• 80% chance that at least one of the next five years will exceed 2024 as the warmest on record

• 86% chance that at least one of next five years will be more than 1.5°C above the 1850-1900 average

• 70% chance that 5-year average warming for 2025-2029 will be more than 1.5 °C

• Long-term warming (averaged over decades) remains below 1.5°C

• Arctic warming predicted to continue to outstrip global average

• Precipitation patterns with big regional variation.

The WMO report forecasts that the annually averaged global mean near-surface temperature for each year between 2025 and 2029 is predicted to be between 1.2°C and 1.9°C higher than the average over the years 1850-1900.

There is an 80% chance that at least one year between 2025 and 2029 will be warmer than the warmest year on record (currently 2024). And there is an 86% chance that at least one year will be more than 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level. The report does not give global predictions for individual years.

There is a forecast 70% chance that the five-year average warming for 2025-2029 will be more than 1.5°C, according to the report. This is up from 47% in last year’s report (for the 2024-2028 period) and up from 32% in the 2023 report for the 2023-2027 period.

Every additional fraction of a degree of warming drives more harmful heatwaves, extreme rainfall events, intense droughts, melting of ice sheets, sea ice, and glaciers, heating of the ocean, and rising sea levels.

Key points:

• Arctic warming over the next five extended winters (November to March) is predicted to be more than three and a half times the global average, at 2.4°C above the average temperature during the most recent 30-year baseline period (1991-2020).

• Predictions of sea ice for March 2025-2029 suggest further reductions in sea-ice concentration in the Barents Sea, Bering Sea, and Sea of Okhotsk.

• Predicted precipitation patterns for May-September 2025-2029, relative to the 1991-2020 baseline, suggest wetter than average conditions in the Sahel, northern Europe, Alaska and northern Siberia, and drier than average conditions for this season over the Amazon.

• Recent years, apart from 2023, in the South Asian region have been wetter than average and the forecast suggests this will continue for the 2025-2029 period. This may not be the case for all individual seasons in this period.

The scientists working with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) say temperature rises should be measured in 20-year not five-year averages. Nonetheless, keeping warming below 1.5C – even over a longer time-frame – “would require a miraculous intervention.

The writer of this article is Dr. Seema Javed, an environmentalist & a communications professional in the field of climate and energy