Global mean surface temperatures in 2015 are set to reach one degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels for the first time, Britain’s Met Office said on Monday.
Global mean surface temperatures in 2015 are set to reach one degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels for the first time, Britain’s Met Office said on Monday.
“Data from January to September showed global mean temperature at 1.02C above 1850-1900 levels,” the national weather service said.
The data has a 0.11C margin of error.
“This represents an important marker as the world continues to warm due to human influence,” the Met Office said.
Stephen Belcher, director of the Met Office Hadley Centre, said: “We have seen a strong El Nino develop in the tropical Pacific this year and that will have had some impact on this year’s global temperature.”
“We’ve had similar natural events in the past, yet this is the first time we’re set to reach the 1C marker and it’s clear that it is human influence driving our modern climate into uncharted territory.”
Concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere hit a new high in 2014, the UN said on Monday, warning the resulting climate change was moving the world into “unchartered territory”.
In its annual report on Earth-warming greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the World Meteor-ological Organisation said concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and nitrous oxide once again broke records in 2014.
“We are moving into unchartered territory at a frightening speed,” WMO chief Michel Jarraud said in a statement.
The report came as country envoys gathered on Monday in Paris to iron out tough political questions ahead of a key summit tasked with sealing a climate rescue pact.
“Every year we report a new record in greenhouse gas concentrations,” Mr Jarraud said.
“Every year we say that the time is running out. We have to act now to slash greenhouse gas emissions if we are to have a chance to keep the increase in temperatures to manageable levels,” he warned.
His appeal comes just weeks before a Paris summit aimed at ensuring global warming is limited to two degrees Celsius over pre-Industrial Revolution levels.
Mr Jarraud said that CO2, by far the main culprit in global warming, can remain in the atmosphere for hundreds of years and in the ocean even longer.
“Past, present and future emissions will have a cumulative impact on both global warming and ocean acidification,” he said, stressing “the laws of physics are non-negotiable”.
WMO’s report, which does not measure emissions of greenhouse gases but rather their concentrations in the atmosphere, showed that CO2 had risen to 397.7 parts per million (ppm) in the atmosphere in 2014.
That was 143 per cent of levels prior to the year 1750, WMO said, adding that CO2 concentrations would likely pass the ominous 400-ppm threshold in 2016.
