A warming world is alarming indeed

Concerns about a warming planet have been aggravated by two weather-related announcements late last week. The first came on Thursday when the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Climate Change Service predicted this year is on track to become the hottest since at least 1940. The second followed a day later, with Unicef saying floods, storms, and other weather-related disasters have driven millions of children from their homes, with the situation set to deteriorate if action is not taken.
Scientists have said climate change, combined with this year’s El Nino weather pattern that warms surface waters in the eastern and central Pacific Ocean, have fuelled recent record-breaking temperatures. “It’s just mind-blowing really,” said Copernicus Director Carlo Buontempo. “Never seen anything like that in any month in our records.”
While July and August had hotter raw temperatures because they are warmer months on the calendar, September had what scientists call the biggest anomaly, or departure from normal. Temperature anomalies are crucial pieces of data in a warming world. “This is not a fancy weather statistic,” Imperial College of London climate scientist Friederike Otto said. “It’s a death sentence for people and ecosystems. It destroys assets, infrastructure, harvest.”
The Copernicus finding, based on its records that began in 1940, showed that the global average temperature for January-September was 0.52C higher than the average of the climate change service’s 1991-2020 reference period, based on its records dating back to 1940. That temperature is 1.4C higher than the pre-industrial period from 1850 to 1900, the institute added.
However, such an increase does not mean the world is on the verge of crossing the long-term warming threshold of 1.5C set by world leaders in the 2015 Paris accord since that is measured as a multi-decadal average. Copernicus has previously said 2020 and 2016 were the hottest years on record, with global temperatures around 1.25C above pre-industrial times.
“What is especially worrying is that the warming El Niño event is still developing, and so we can expect these record-breaking temperatures to continue for months, with cascading impacts on our environment and society,” said World Meteorological Organisation Secretary-General Petteri Taalas, referring to the climate phenomenon that drives extreme heat.
Copernicus’s analysis is based on billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations. While some temperature measurements go back to the 19th Century, Copernicus says it only used its own records for its global temperature database. Antarctic sea ice extent remained at a record low level for the time of year, while the Arctic Sea ice extent is 18% below average.
Meanwhile, the Unicef report explained there have been 43.1mn internal displacements of children across 44 countries between 2016 and 2021, due to events such as droughts and wildfires. Unicef recorded the most weather-related child displacements in the East Asia and Pacific region due to the combination of hazards there, followed by South Asia. Among the countries with the highest in absolute numbers were China and the Philippines, due to their exposure to extreme weather events, their large child populations and evacuation capacities.
“As the impacts of climate change escalate, so too will climate-driven movement,” Unicef executive director Catherine Russell said in a statement. “We have the tools and knowledge to respond to this escalating challenge for children, but we are acting far too slowly.”
Extreme weather events have become more common in recent years due to climate change. Floods and storms accounted for 95% of the child displacements, said Unicef, during the six-year period, according to its report, “Children Displaced in a Changing Climate”. “The displacement of children is barely on the radar of leaders,” said Verena Knaus, Unicef Global Lead on Migration and Displacement. The report projects that nearly 96mn children will be displaced due to river floods alone over the next three decades, an average of almost 3.2mn children every year. Alarming indeed.