The next five years will continue to be warm, according to the weather organization WMO.
The five-year period will probably end up above 1.5 degrees, the limit that the world's countries have agreed to try to stay below.
The warming globe does not look like it will get any respite. Global warming, which is mainly caused by human burning of fossil fuels, is expected to lead to significantly warmer temperatures in 2025–2029 than the pre-industrial average.
According to Markku Rummukainen, professor of climatology at Lund University, looking at this time span is a relatively new phenomenon, halfway between traditional weather forecasts and long-term climate scenarios.
“The better this type of calculations get, the more opportunities there will be for, for example, the energy sector, agriculture, the insurance industry and water management to prepare,” he says.
Anna Rutgersson, professor of meteorology at Uppsala University, agrees:
“These are the types of businesses that I think can benefit from this. I don’t think you should use it to plan your vacation.”
1.5-degree target still relevant
According to the WMO, there is a 70 percent risk that the entire period will be 1.5 degrees warmer than the period 1850–1900. Despite this, the WMO emphasizes that the so-called 1.5-degree target – which the world's countries have agreed to try to keep warming below – is still alive. That target is based on a 20-year average.
– There is a risk that we have entered that 20-year period because we are now starting to see such warm years and the warming continues. But it will take a few more years before it becomes apparent, says Rummukainen.
Wet and dry
Summers in northern Europe are expected to be wetter than we are used to.
– You shouldn't see it as it is now that it will rain more in Sweden within five years, that is quite uncertain. But the five-year forecast is an overall indication that it will be wetter, says Rutgersson.
At the same time, it is expected to remain abnormally dry in the Amazon, where water levels in the river system have been low and the drought has led to fires.
– A drier Amazon is a problematic signal, states Rutgersson.
Over the Arctic, the next five winters will be significantly warmer than average. Here, scientists expect an average temperature of 2.4 degrees warmer. The warmer weather is expected to hit the sea ice in the region hard.
FACTS
WMO:s femårsprognos
TT
Based on today's climate, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has run computer models from 14 research institutes for the period 2025–2029, to calculate how the Earth's climate is likely to develop. The calculations show: + 80 percent risk that at least one of the next five years (including this year) will be record warm. + 86 percent chance that at least one year will be at least 1.5 degrees warmer than the pre-industrial average (1850–1900). + 70 percent chance that the entire period will be at least 1.5 degrees warmer. + That the global temperature during the period will be 1.2–1.9 degrees above average.
FACTS
The 1.5-degree target
TT The Paris Agreement is an international agreement on climate change, adopted by 196 countries at the COP21 climate conference in Paris in 2015. The goal is to keep the global temperature increase, which is mainly caused by human combustion of fossil fuels, well below 2.0 degrees, preferably 1.5 degrees, by the end of the century. Over the past ten years (up to and including 2024), the average increase has been 1.26 degrees. The Paris Agreement also contains a framework for rich countries to support poor countries financially with the transition. The goal is set to mitigate the most devastating effects of climate change, which gets worse for every tenth of a degree the Earth warms. Source: UNFCCC, Swedish Environmental Protection Agency
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