2020 is on course to be the world’s hottest year ever since measurements began, several meteorologists working with top global research centres have said. They estimate that there is 50 to 75 per cent chance that this year will break the record set four years ago in 2016.
As things stand, temperatures are about 3 degree Celsius above average in Eastern Europe and Asia in the first quarter.
Even though the coronavirus lockdown has temporarily cleared the skies, it has done nothing to cool the climate, which needs deeper, longer-term measures, the meteorologists argue.
Reports suggest that heat records have been broken from the Antarctic to Greenland since January, which has surprised many simply because this is no sign of an El Niño – a natural phenomenon usually associated with a rise in temperatures.
Scientists of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration suggest that there is a 75 per cent chance that 2020 will be the hottest year since measurements began. They further said that trends were closely tracking the current record of 2016 when temperatures shot up early in the year amid an unusually intense El Niño and then dropped down.
The American agency went on to add that the likelihood of 2020 being one of the top five years for temperatures on record is a 99.9 per cent.
A separate estimation by Gavin Schmidt, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, found a 60 per cent chance of high temperatures this year setting a record.
(PNN & Agencies)