WMO says latest data on climate is pushing world into 'uncharted territory'
Wed 22 March 2017
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Scientists at the World Meteorological Organisation say that Earth is a planet in upheaval. The Organisation's latest report says that unprecedented heat across the globe, exceptionally low ice at both poles and surging sea-level rise is pushing the world into “truly uncharted territory”. Meanwhile, US scientists have calculated that human activity is the cause of up to 70% of the decline in Arctic summer sea ice.
The WMO says that the record-breaking heat that made 2016 the hottest year ever recorded has continued into 2017. The Guardian reports that global warming is largely being driven by emissions from human activities, but a strong El Niño – a natural climate cycle – added to the heat in 2016. The El Niño is now waning, but the extremes continue to be seen, with temperature records tumbling in the US in February and polar heatwaves pushing ice cover to new lows.
Meanwhile, in a separate study, US scientists have calculated that humans can be held responsible for at least 50 per cent and up to 70 per cent of the decline in Arctic summer sea ice which could devastate Arctic ecology, and accelerate climate change in the temperate and tropical zones.
Sea ice decline in the Arctic has been dramatic and sustained over the last five decades, but it has been an uneven decline. The burden of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has increased over those decades, and so have average atmospheric global temperatures.
Researchers from California, Washington state, Maryland and New Jersey report in
Nature Climate Change journal that they used three aspects of atmospheric circulation in the months of June, July and August to look at the whole picture again.
However, the human factor remains uncertain – detailed and systematic measurements of change in the Arctic began only in the later 20th Century – but the researchers are confident that the overall decline of September sea ice in the Arctic Circle is at least 50 per cent the responsibility of humans, and possibly 70 per cent.
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