Global Climate Report

Why in news?

• State of Global Climate Report has been published.

About the report and its findings:

• It is published by World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
• According to the report, Extreme weather combined with COVID-19 in a double blow for millions of people in 2020.
• 2020 was one of the three warmest years on record, despite a cooling La Niña event.
• The global average temperature was about 1.2° Celsius above the pre-industrial (1850-1900) level.
• The six years since 2015 have been the warmest on record. 2011-2020 was the warmest decade on record.

Key indicators of Irreversible change in climate:

    The WMO report listed five key indicators of irreversible changes in the global climate:

• Greenhouse Gases: Emission of major greenhouse gases increased in 2019 and 2020 and the level of greenhouse gas emission will be higher in 2021.
• Oceans: In 2019, the oceans had the highest heat content on record. In 2020, it has broken this record further.  
• Sea-level rise: Since record-taking started in 1993 using the satellite altimeter, sea-level has been rising. However, there was a blip in summer of 2020 that recorded a drop in sea level. The WMO report says it is due to the La Niña induced cooling and is likely to be temporary.
• The Arctic and Antarctica: In 2020, the Arctic sea-ice extent came down to second lowest on record.  While the Antarctic sea-ice extent remained close to the long-term average. However, the Antarctic ice sheet has exhibited a strong mass loss trend since the late 1990s.

Prelims Question

Global climate report is published by:
(a)IPCC
(b)World Metrological Organisation
(c)UN environment program
(d)Climate action network

Answer to Prelims question