A new study of global warming and other climate indicators by the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service found 2021 marked the fifth hottest record year on record.
- New data reveal that the last seven years were the seven warmest on record to the planet as the Earth’s temperature rises further precariously due to fossil fuel emissions trapped in the heat trap.
While long term trends are increasing, annual fluctuations in global temperature are expected, largely due to extensive weather and ocean conditions such as El Niño and La Niña, which will occur in 2021 and tend to give way to a colder global temperature.
“The really important thing is to not get hung up on the ranking of one particular year but rather kind of see the bigger picture of ever-warming temperatures, and that ever-warming doesn’t mean every year will be warmer than the next,” said Freja Vamborg, senior researcher with Copernicus.
The Earth is about 1.1 degrees Celsius above average pre-industrial levels, Copernicus has reported, 73% of the way to that 1.5-degree threshold, below which scientists warn the planet needs to stay to avoid the more devastating effects.
With every split second of a degree of warming, the disease gets worse and more likely to be hospitalized.
Last year was Europe’s hottest on record, the agency said, with several extreme weather events causing damage across the continent, including deadly floods in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Experts warned that the 2030 global greenhouse gas emissions will still be around double what is needed to keep warming to 1.5 degrees.
