Global Temperatures Expected to Rise 2ºC by 2030

Summary

A new report from the World Meteorological Organization pre­dicts global tem­per­a­tures will rise nearly 2 ºC above pre-indus­trial lev­els by the end of the decade, with a high chance of sur­pass­ing 1.5 ºC in the next five years. The report warns that every degree of warm­ing will fuel extreme weather events and neg­a­tive impacts on economies, ecosys­tems, and daily life.

Global tem­per­a­tures are fore­casted to rise nearly 2ºC above pre-indus­trial lev­els by the end of the decade, accord­ing to a new World Meteorological Organization report.

The WMO fore­casts that annual aver­age global sur­face tem­per­a­tures for each year between 2025 and 2029 may rise between 1.2°C and 1.9°C above the aver­age from 1850 to 1900.

The report fur­ther antic­i­pated that there is an 80 per­cent chance that one of the next five years will sur­pass 2024 as the hottest year on record, and an 86 per­cent chance that at least one year will exceed 1.5°C above the pre-indus­trial level.

Scientists from Copernicus, the Earth obser­va­tion unit of the European Union’s space pro­gram, con­firmed in January that aver­age global sur­face tem­per­a­tures reached 1.6ºC above pre-indus­trial lev­els in 2024.

Climate sci­en­tists have warned that mul­ti­ple tip­ping points are likely to be trig­gered by 1.5°C of warm­ing, includ­ing the col­lapse of ice sheets, changes to ocean cur­rents, bio­di­ver­sity loss, and the melt­ing of per­mafrost. 

“These very lat­est pre­dic­tions sug­gest we are very close now to hav­ing 1.5ºC years com­mon­place,” said Adam Scaife, the head of long-range fore­cast­ing at the Met Office, the United Kingdom’s national weather and cli­mate ser­vice.

“We’ve had one in 2024, but they’re increas­ing in fre­quency, and we are going to see more of these,” he added. ​“These are shock­ing sta­tis­tics, and there is even a chance now, and it’s the first time we’ve ever seen such an event in our com­puter pre­dic­tions, of a 2ºC year, which would be com­pletely unprece­dented.”

The WMO warned that every degree of warm­ing fuels heat­waves, tor­ren­tial rain­fall events, intense droughts, the melt­ing of ice and glac­i­ers, ocean heat­ing and ris­ing sea lev­els.

Heatwaves in the south­ern Spanish region of Andalusia in May 2022 and 2023 were mostly respon­si­ble for back-to-back his­tor­i­cally poor har­vests in the world’s most pro­lific olive oil-pro­duc­ing region, con­tribut­ing to record-high olive oil prices of the pre­vi­ous few years.

The WMO fur­ther antic­i­pated that the Arctic, which reached a record-high tem­per­a­ture of 38 ºC in 2020, would warm three and a half times faster than the global aver­age over the next five years, accom­pa­nied by sig­nif­i­cant sea ice melt in adja­cent seas. 

A sep­a­rate report pub­lished in April by the Copernicus Climate Change Service found that Europe is warm­ing at a faster rate than the global aver­age. 

“This report high­lights that Europe is the fastest-warm­ing con­ti­nent and is expe­ri­enc­ing seri­ous impacts from extreme weather and cli­mate change,” WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said.

The WMO also fore­casted increased sum­mer pre­cip­i­ta­tion in some regions, includ­ing the Sahel, north­ern Europe, Alaska and north­ern Siberia, along with drier con­di­tions in the Amazon basin.

“We have just expe­ri­enced the ten warmest years on record,” said Ko Barrett, the WMO deputy sec­re­tary-gen­eral. ​“Unfortunately, this WMO report pro­vides no sign of respite over the com­ing years, and this means that there will be a grow­ing neg­a­tive impact on our economies, our daily lives, our ecosys­tems and our planet,” 

“Continued cli­mate mon­i­tor­ing and pre­dic­tion is essen­tial to pro­vide deci­sion-mak­ers with sci­ence-based tools and infor­ma­tion to help us adapt,” she added.