Scientists say the most recent information underscores the necessity for nations and companies to slash greenhouse gasoline emissions shortly.
Final yr tied with 2016 because the world’s warmest yr on document, rounding off the most well liked decade globally because the impacts of local weather change intensified, the European Union’s Copernicus Local weather Change Service mentioned on Friday.
After an exceptionally heat winter and autumn in Europe, the continent skilled its hottest yr on document in 2020, whereas the Arctic suffered excessive warmth and atmospheric concentrations of planet-warming carbon dioxide continued to rise.
Scientists mentioned the most recent information underscored the necessity for nations and companies to slash greenhouse gasoline emissions shortly sufficient to carry inside attain the targets of the 2015 Paris Settlement to keep away from catastrophic local weather change.
“The extraordinary local weather occasions of 2020 and the info from the Copernicus Local weather Change Service present us that we now have no time to lose,” mentioned Matthias Petschke, director for house within the European Fee, the EU’s government arm. The bloc’s house programmes embody the Copernicus earth remark satellites.
In 2020, temperatures globally have been a mean of 1.25 levels Celsius (2.25 levels Fahrenheit) larger than in pre-industrial occasions, Copernicus mentioned. The final six years have been the world’s hottest on document.
The Paris accord goals to cap the rise in temperatures to “nicely under” 2C (3.6F) and as shut as attainable to 1.5C (2.7F) to keep away from probably the most devastating impacts of local weather change.
“The important thing right here is to … cut back the quantity we emit,” Copernicus senior scientist Freja Vamborg instructed Reuters information company.
Final yr additionally noticed the best temperature ever reliably recorded, when in August a California heatwave pushed the temperature at Dying Valley within the Mojave Desert as much as 54.4C (129.92F).
The Arctic and northern Siberia continued to heat faster than the planet as an entire in 2020, with temperatures in elements of those areas averaging greater than 6C (10.8F) above a 30-year common used as a baseline, Copernicus mentioned.
The area additionally had an “unusually lively” wildfire season, with fires poleward of the Arctic Circle releasing a document 244 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) in 2020, greater than a 3rd greater than in 2019.
Arctic sea ice continued to deplete, with July and October each setting information for the bottom sea ice extent in that month.
Scientists who weren’t concerned within the research mentioned it was per rising proof that local weather change is contributing to extra intense hurricanes, fires, floods and different disasters.
In the US, the prices in lives and harm is quick rising, mentioned Adam Smith, a local weather scientist with the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
“We want one other dictionary to assist us describe how these extremes proceed to play out and unfold yr after yr,” mentioned Smith, who tracks climate-related disasters that trigger harm estimated at greater than $1bn.
Smith mentioned the $16bn disasters that occurred in the US within the first 9 months of 2020 matched earlier annual information set in 2011 and 2017.
A preliminary tally discovered that 13 of final yr’s disasters led to not less than 188 deaths and prices of $46.6bn, Smith mentioned. NOAA was to launch a whole survey of damages in 2020 at 16:00 GMT (11:00 am EST) on Friday.