It's one more heat record.
2020 is the hottest year on record in the world, tied with 2016. Copernicus, the European climate change service, explains that the temperature is 1.25 ° C above that of the pre-industrial period , which goes until around 1750.
Where 2020 stands out from 2016 is that the record comes in a year when the La Niña phenomenon occurred.
Taking place in the eastern and central Pacific off South America, it is characterized by cooling ocean temperatures.
Conversely, 2016 was marked by El Niño, which has the opposite effect, that is to say an increase in the level of the temperature of the ocean, which itself increases the temperature of the planet by 0.1 ° C to 0.2 ° C.
This map makes it possible to distinguish the difference in the average temperature over the entire planet.
The La Niña area is identifiable.
Copernicus
“It's pretty clear that in the absence of the impacts of El Niño and La Niña on temperature year over year, 2020 would be the hottest year on record,” says Zeke Hausfather, climatologist at Breakthrough Institute US center, noting that the world has gained 0.2 ° C per decade since the 1970s.
In Europe, more than 2.2 ° C more than in the pre-industrial period
In Europe, marked by an exceptional heat wave, the year 2020 was by far the hottest, 0.4 ° C above 2019, and 1.6 ° C above the reference period 1981-2010.
This level is more than 2.2 ° C higher than the pre-industrial period.
This warming already exceeds the objectives of the Paris Agreement signed in 2015. But these objectives are for the entire planet.
However, the land is warming faster than the oceans and some regions are warming much faster, such as the Arctic, where temperatures in 2020 were 6 ° C above the reference average.
The year was marked by an “exceptionally dynamic” forest fire season, releasing 244 megatonnes of CO2, “more than a third more than the 2019 record,” says Copernicus.
The hottest five years since the start of the industrial age
Beyond a single isolated year, the 2015-2020 period is the hottest on record and the last decade (2011-2020) is also the hottest since the start of the industrial era, from the middle of the 18th century. century.
"This reminds us once again of the urgency to reduce emissions in an ambitious manner in order to prevent adverse effects on the climate", underlines Carlo Buontempo, director of Copernicus.
These effects are numerous, are already being felt and result in climate change caused by warming, whether it is the melting of the ice floes in exceptional heat waves, through torrential precipitation or even the last record season of hurricanes in the Caribbean.
And the worst is yet to come.
The planet has gained at least 1.1 ° C compared to the pre-industrial era, with already its share of climatic catastrophes.
But despite the objectives of the Paris Agreement to keep warming below + 2 ° C, or even only + 1.5 ° C, the states' current commitments to reduce greenhouse gases are still a long way from this trajectory.
The concentration of CO2 thus continues to increase.
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Stefan Ramstorf, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
takes an image to describe the situation based on a one-time 7% drop in emissions due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere like water in a bathtub.
If the flow rate of the tap is reduced by 7%, the level increases more slowly but it continues to rise.
We must turn off the tap to stabilize the climate ”