Extract from ABC News
By national environment and science reporter Jake
Sturmer
Updated about 5 hours ago
This year is set to be the hottest on record, due
to a strong El Nino season and global warming, the World
Meteorological Organisation (WMO) says.
The WMO said temperatures have now risen 1 degree
Celsius since the industrial revolution, with 2C considered the limit
to avoid dangerous climate change.
"The state of the global climate in 2015 will
make history as for a number of reasons," WMO secretary-general
Michel Jarraud said.
"Greenhouse gas emissions, which are causing
climate change, can be controlled. We have the knowledge and the
tools to act."
The UN agency's provisional statement on the
status of the climate also declared the five-year period between 2011
and 2015 the hottest on record.
"Levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere
reached new highs and in the Northern hemisphere spring 2015 the
three-month global average concentration of CO2 crossed the 400 parts
per million barrier for the first time," Mr Jarraud said.
"We have a choice — future generations do
not."
Australia has had its fair share of climate
records broken this year too — recently the Bureau of Meteorology
declared October
to be the hottest ever recorded.
Photo:
2015's temperature changes in Celsius compared to 1961 to 1990.
(WMO/Met Office Hadley Centre)
A strong El Nino event is also pushing up
temperatures.
"The overall warming impact of this El Nino
is expected to continue into 2016," Mr Jarraud said.
The WMO usually waits to have a full year's worth
of data before drawing conclusions but said it wanted to give
negotiators the most up to date information before discussions begin
at the UN's
Paris Climate Summit next week.
More than 145 world leaders are set to gather in
Paris from Monday for a conference seeking to cap average global
warming at two degrees Celsius above mid-19th Century levels.
The global average surface temperature from
January to October shows the temperature for 2015 was around 0.73C
above the 1961 to 1990 average of 14C, and approximately one degree
above the pre-industrial 1880 to 1899 period.
The WMO said the global average sea-surface
temperature, which set a record last year, is also likely to be met
or beaten this year — although there were some notable cold spots,
like around the Antarctic.
"A strong anomaly in atmospheric patterns
known as the Southern Annular Mode lasted for several months,"
the statement said.
"Eastern areas of north America were colder
than average during the year, but none were record cold.
Megacities swamped by sea rise
Australia's coastal capitals would slip under the waves along with megacities across the world even if global warming can be limited to 2 degrees Celsius, scientists say.
"After a warm January to September, Argentina
experienced its coldest October on record."
Professor Matthew England from UNSW's Climate
Change Research Centre said the global air average temperature record
had been "absolutely smashed in 2015".
"This warming blows away the record-breaking
1997-1998 El Nino by a massive 0.2 degrees Celsius," he said.
"The cause of this difference between two
similar El Nino years is record levels of greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere.
"This should be a huge wake-up call in the
lead up to Paris for urgent and binding deep cuts in fossil fuel
emissions."
Dr Karl Braganza, the head of climate monitoring
at the Bureau of Meteorology, worked on the report and said the heat
would likely continue next year.
"Australia saw record spring temperatures in
2013, again in 2014, and this may well continue for a third
consecutive year," he said.
"These are significant changes for the
climate system, with a likelihood that these are the warmest
temperatures since before the last ice age, and the highest levels of
carbon dioxide in more than two-and-a-half million years."
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