2013 - Sixth Warmest Year on Record
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FILE - World Meteorological Organization (WMO)
Secretary-General Michel Jarraud (r).
Lisa Schlein
March 24, 2014
GENEVA — The World Meteorological
Organization reports 2013 was the sixth warmest year on record,
confirming the long-term global warming is continuing. In its annual
report on the Status of the Climate, WMO describes a pattern of extreme
weather events across the planet.
The World Meteorological Organization finds 13 of the 14 warmest years
on record have occurred in the 21st Century. And it says each of the
last three decades has been warmer than the previous one, with 2001 to
2010 being the warmest decade on record.
WMO Secretary-General, Michel Jarraud said it is important to look
beyond individual years in order to assess the global warming trend. He
said within this trend, there is significant variability in weather
patterns. He added, though, 2013 definitely confirms a continuation of
this trend.
“Since 2001, the first year of this Century, the coldest year that we
have observed since 2001 is actually warmer than any year before 1998. I
do not think this can be used in seeing a contradiction of the stop in
climate change. Climate change is not stopping," said Jarraud.
Jarraud said the fact that parts of the United States and Canada were
hit by very cold weather does not belie climate change because many
other places in the planet were hit with significantly warmer weather
than usual.
The
WMO climate report highlights details of ice cover, ocean warming,
sea level rise and greenhouse gas concentrations. It says all these
events are inter-related and indicate that climate is changing.
It notes significant parts of the Asian continent saw more rain than
usual last year. And, it says the United Kingdom recorded the wettest
winter in more than 250 years. It says Typhoon Haiyan, one of the
strongest storms to ever make landfall, devastated parts of the Central
Philippines.
The report says severe drought hit the Western part of the U.S. state of
California, as well as the Sahel in Africa and the southern African
countries of Namibia, Botswana, and Angola. It says drought was linked
to a record heat wave in Australia, which meteorologists confirm was due
in large part to human activity.
WMO’s Jarraud says phenomena such as heavier precipitation, more intense
heat and more damage from storm surges and coastal flooding are
consistent with what one would expect as a result of human-induced
climate change.
He says the state of the Arctic ice also is a concern.
“What is worrying is that an increasing fraction of this ice is recent
new ice. This ice is normkally very thin and therefore more vulnerable
to the variability and the change in the climate. So, this is the fact
that the ice surface is a little bit more than the previous year is
actually not in contradiction with the global warming. Actually the
volume continues to decrease. So, we are very much concerned about the
evolution of the Arctic ice," he said.
Jarraud says there is a strong possibility of an El Nino developing near
the end of this year. El Nino is a complex interaction between the
atmosphere and the ocean. If El Nino is confirmed, Jarraud says the
world can expect a warmer year.
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