WMO’s new climate forecast warns Earth is getting hotter and hotter

The latest global climate forecast suggests that the average global temperature is likely to continue reaching record or near-record levels over the next five years.

According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the global climate predictions are expected to increase climate risks and impacts on societies, economies and sustainable development.

Earth getting hotter

The world is on track to remain hot, or get hotter, over the next five years, according to the report released last week by the WMO.

The WMO report forecasts that the annually averaged global mean near-surface temperature for each year between 2025 and 2029 is predicted to be between 1.2°C and 1.9°C higher than the average over the years 1850-1900.

It shows there is an 80% chance that at least one year between 2025 and 2029 will be warmer than the warmest year on record (currently 2024). And there is an 86% chance that at least one year will be more than 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level.

The report did not give global predictions for individual years.

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Warnings

Every additional fraction of a degree of warming drives more harmful heatwaves, extreme rainfall events, intense droughts, melting of ice sheets, sea ice, and glaciers, heating of the ocean, and rising sea levels.

The WMO’s report – Global Annual to Decadal Climate Update for 2025-2029 – draws on forecasts from 15 international climate institutions, including the UK’s Met Office, as the WMO Lead Centre for Annual to Decadal Climate Prediction.

Global temperatures

It provides some of the clearest near-term predictions of our warming world, and warns that global temperatures are set to remain at or near record highs for at least the next five years.

“We have just experienced the ten warmest years on record. 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,” said WMO Deputy Secretary-General Ko Barrett.

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

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2024

WMO’s State of the Global Climate 2024 report released in March confirmed that 2024 was likely the first calendar year to be more than 1.5°C above the 1850-1900 average, with a global mean near-surface temperature of 1.55 ± 0.13 °C above the 1850-1900 average.

It was the warmest year in the 175-year observational record.

In 2022, Professor Coleen Vogel, a climatologist with Wits University’s Global Change Unit, warned about the rising temperatures.

“This is likely the warmest Earth has been in 125,000 years. It is possible that during the Last Interglacial, about 125,000 years ago, Earth has been warmer,” adding that such past periods of higher temperatures were caused by slow changes in the orbital characteristics of Earth, occurring over tens of thousands of years.

Cop 30

This year’s UN climate change conference, COP30, will consider updated climate action plans known as Nationally Determined Contributions which are crucial for achieving the Paris Agreement goals.

Under the Paris Agreement, countries agreed to hold the increase in long-term global average surface temperature well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursue efforts to limit the increase to 1.5°C.

The scientific community has repeatedly warned that warming of more than 1.5°C risks unleashing far more severe climate change impacts and extreme weather and every fraction of a degree of warming matters.

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