A Cal Fire firefighter from the Lassen-Modoc Unit watches as an oil tanker drops fire retardant on the Dixie Fire as trees burn on a hillside on August 18, 2021 near Janesville, California.
Patrick T. Fallon | AFP | beautiful pictures
The past seven years have been the hottest on record, with 2021 ranking as the fifth-hottest year as the world continues to see an increase in greenhouse gas emissions due to climate change, according to a report published today. announced on Monday.
The annual findings of Copernicus climate change service, an intergovernmental body that supports European climate policy, shows a continued upward trend in temperatures as fossil fuel emissions trap more heat in the atmosphere.
Carlo Buontempo, Copernicus service manager, said: “The year 2021 is another extreme temperature year with the hottest summer in Europe, heatwaves in the Mediterranean, not to mention unprecedented high temperatures in the North. America”.
Water flows into the Alaknanda River two days after part of a Himalayan glacier broke causing catastrophic flooding in the Tapovan area of Uttarakhand state, India, Tuesday, February 9, 2021.
Rishabh R. Jain | AP
Children play on a splash board at Discovery Green during the heatwave in Houston, Texas, on Thursday, June 17, 2021.
Callaghan O’Hare | Bloomberg | beautiful pictures
Some parts of the world were warmer than others last year. For example, Europe has experienced a harsh summer with intense heat waves in the Mediterranean and flooding in central Europe. The 10 hottest years for Europe have all occurred since 2000, and the 7 hottest years have been between 2014 and 2020.
In North America, an intense heatwave in June broke maximum temperature records and resulted in the warmest June on record for the continent, the agency said.
Extremely dry conditions also exacerbated wildfires throughout July and August, particularly in some Canadian provinces and the western United States. The Dixie Flame has become second biggest fire in California’s history, burning nearly 1 million acres and resulting in poor air quality for thousands of people across the country.
Abandoned cars on Major Deegan Freeway are flooded after a night of extreme rain caused by the remnants of Hurricane Ida on September 2, 2021 in the Bronx borough of New York City.
Spencer Platt | beautiful pictures
“These events are a stark reminder of the need to change the way we are, taking decisive and effective steps towards a sustainable society and towards reducing our emissions. net carbon,” Buontempo said.
According to the agency, last year was 0.3 degrees Celsius above the average for the period from 1991 to 2020, and between 1.1 and 1.2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average from 1991 to 2020. 1850 to 1900, according to the agency.
Keeping global temperatures from exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius – the level set by the 2015 Paris Agreement that scientists say will avert the worst effects of climate change – will require the world to reduce nearly half of greenhouse gas emissions within the next decade and reach net zero by 2050, based on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The world is on track to increase its temperature by 2.4 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, according to a company that tracks scientific data.
