The World Meteorological Organization presented this Tuesday more evidence that the Earth is warming, but some believe that the trend is not accelerating.
According to its latest report on the impact of climate change on the planet, the United Nations weather agency confirms that between 2011 and 2020, glaciers have shrunk more than ever before and that Antarctica’s ice sheet has lost 75% more than in the last 10 years.
The World Meteorological Organization on Tuesday presented further evidence of what scientists already know, that the Earth is warming, but this time it revised the trend over a longer period of time for its latest report on the decadal state of the climate.
“Each decade since the 1990s has been warmer than the previous and we see no immediate signs that this trend will reverse,” said the agency’s secretary general, Petteri Taalas. “We are losing the race to keep our glaciers and ice sheets from melting.”
Warming oceans and melting ice sheets have caused the rate of sea level rise to almost double in less than a generation, he added. According to the WMO, this is a bad sign for coastal countries and regions.
Experts disagree about one of the most important parameters: the heating rate.
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James Hansen, a former NASA scientist dubbed the “godfather” of global warming for his early warnings, says the pace has increased. For his part, climatologist Michael Mann from the University of Pennsylvania argues that it has been increasing steadily since 1990, but is not accelerating.
“Both the surface of the planet and the oceans continue to warm at a constant, non-accelerating rate, which is bad enough,” Mann explained in an email, warning that this warming is fueling increasingly dangerous extreme weather events and coasts flooded and many other “catastrophic” consequences.
“Warming and its consequences will continue as long as we continue to produce carbon pollution through burning fossil fuels and other activities, underscoring the urgent need to make progress at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai,” he added.
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According to the WMO report, glaciers measured worldwide shrank by an average of about one meter per year between 2011 and 2020, and the review of more than 40 “reference glaciers” found the lowest mass balances in history.
“Glaciers near the equator generally experience rapid retreat. Glaciers in Papua and Indonesia are likely to disappear completely in the next decade,” the agency noted. “In Africa, the glaciers on the Ruwenzori Mountains and Mount Kenya are expected to disappear by 2030, and those on Kilimanjaro by 2040.”
As for ice sheet retreat, Greenland and Antarctica lost 38% more ice between 2011 and 2020 than in the previous decade, the report said, suggesting that sea level rise accelerated in those years due to the thaw.
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