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In its recent report ‘State of the Climate, Update 2024’, the World Meteorological Organization issued a stern warning on the bad state of affairs.
Noting that 2024 is on track to being the hottest year on record, beating 2023, the report says, “The record-breaking rainfall and flooding, rapidly intensifying tropical cyclones, deadly heat, relentless drought and raging wildfires that we have seen in different parts of the world this year are unfortunately our new reality and a foretaste of our future.”
Here are some excerpts from the report.
Boiling oceans
Ocean warming will continue — a change that is irreversible on centennial-to-millennial timescales.
Ocean heat content in 2023 was the highest on record. Preliminary data from the early months of 2024 indicate that ocean heat content this year has remained at levels comparable to those in 2023.
Ocean warming rates show a particularly strong increase in the past two decades. The ocean warming corresponds to an average absorption of about 3.1 million terawatt-hours (TWh) of heat each year from 2005-23, more than 18 times the world’s energy consumption in 2023.
Rising seas
The long-term rate of sea-level rise has more than doubled since the start of the satellite record, increasing from 2.13 mm per year between 1993 and 2002 to 4.77 mm annually between 2014 and 2023. This reflects continued ocean warming and thermal expansion, as well as the melting of glaciers and ice sheets. The year 2023 set a new observational record for annual global mean sea level with a rapid rise probably driven largely by El Niño. Preliminary 2024 data shows that the global mean sea level has fallen back to levels consistent with the rising trend from 2014 to 2022, following the declining El Niño in the first half of 2024.
Drying rivers
The year 2023 was the driest for global rivers in over three decades, coinciding with record-high observed temperatures.
The last five years have seen some of the lowest percentages of areas under normal river flow conditions, with reservoir inflows following a similar pattern, further reducing water availability for communities and ecosystems.
Despite the dominance of dryness globally, flooding in connection with extreme precipitation events continued to induce severe loss and damage in many places around the world.
Despite improvements in the availability and accessibility of in situ data shared by WMO members, significant gaps remain, particularly in Africa, South America, and Asia.
The report underscores the potential of satellite-based observations and modelling systems in assisting countries, especially those with limited monitoring capabilities and large data gaps, in addressing these challenges and improving hydrological data collection.
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