Image - NASA
Last year was the warmest since the data began to be recorded in 1880. With a temperature of 1,1ºC higher than during the pre-industrial period, humanity is now heading towards unknown territory, which will put its current situation at risk. way of life unless you take urgent action to prevent it.
Let's review the records that the climate broke in 2016.
On Tuesday, March 21, 2017, the WMO published its annual report on the state of the world climate, which is based on multiple international data that have been obtained independently by the global climate analysis centers. Thus, thanks to this publication, we will be able to get an idea of what is happening on the planet as a whole, and not only in the area where we live.
Climate change is a global event and therefore affects the entire planet. According to the report, not only the average temperature was 1,1ºC above the pre-industrial period, which was 0,6ºC, but also the temperature at the ocean surface was higher than usual.
Image - Twitter @WMO
With increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the influence of human activities on the climate is increasingly evidentsaid WMO Secretary General Petteri Taalas. Because modern computing tools are now available, capable of collecting and comparing data, scientists can demonstrate to what extent humanity is contributing to climate change.
Thus, we can know that during the last 16 years each year has been at least 0,4ºC warmer than the previous one, taking the period 1961-1990 as a reference. During the phenomenon of El Niño from 2015/2016, the sea level rose more than normal, while the ice at the poles was melting.
With a warmer temperature, extreme weather events occurred, such as very severe droughts in southern and eastern Africa and in Central America. Nor can we forget about Hurricane Matthew, which reached category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale and caused the deaths of 1655 people, most of them in Haiti. On the other side of the world, in Asia, heavy rains and floods affected the east and south of the continent.
Although 2016 has long passed, this year, even without the influence of El Niño, extreme weather events will continue to occur.