In particular, the United Nations agency has sounded the alarm because the sea surface temperature in the North Atlantic Ocean is at an “unprecedented high”.
“The first week of July… could be considered the warmest period or warmest week ever recorded,” with a global average temperature of nearly 17.24 degrees Celsius on July 7, Omar Baddour, Director Climate Monitoring Director at WMO.
Never before is the new normal
The WMO expert added that June daily temperatures in the North Atlantic were “suddenly high” by normal readings, while sea levels in Antarctica hit their lowest June since. when starting satellite observations.
With a shocking 17% below average, this year’s readings broke the June 2022 record by a significant margin and represented a “really significant reduction in sea ice area in Antarctica” – about 2.6 million square kilometers of sea ice is lost.
Michael Sparrow, WMO’s World Climate Research Program Director, stressed that it is “really completely unprecedented” to see this magnitude of sea ice reduction around Antarctica.
“The Antarctic region is generally thought to be relatively stable; it is much colder than the North Pole. We’ve seen these big drops in sea ice in the Arctic, but not in Antarctica.”
Sea heat wave
Beyond Antarctica, the UN agency warned that “marine heatwaves” would also impact the distribution of fisheries and ocean ecosystems, with a knock-on effect on climate.
WMO explains that not only the surface temperature of the water but the entire ocean is becoming warmer and absorbing energy that will stay there for hundreds of years.
“When you have a tropical storm, everything on the coast is affected, including fisheries, but also inland,” Mr. Baddour said. “With heavy rainfall that can lead to casualties, population displacement, etc. So if we say it’s a drastic change, that also means the possibility of weather phenomena. and climate extremes are very high.”
El Nino effect
Just last week, WMO announced the onset of an El Niño phenomenon, characterized by warming of the Pacific Ocean. Combined with the anthropogenic greenhouse gas effect, the weather pattern is expected to make one of the next five years the hottest ever on record.
WMO officials told journalists in Geneva that “we are in uncharted territory and we can expect more records to drop as El Niño develops further”, given the implications extended until 2024.
“During an El Niño year, temperatures in the atmosphere are also higher because heat is moving from the oceans into the atmosphere,” said Sparrow.
“We’re really in the early stages of that process, so El Nino hasn’t had as much of an impact as it will have by the end of the year. So we’re seeing these high temperatures in the North Atlantic…despite the fact that El Niño hasn’t really happened yet.”
According to WMO’s Baddour, the hottest year is expected to be after 2023, when El Niño is expected to increase. A record year in 2024 is possible if El Niño’s intensity continues to grow according to forecasts.
