Four key climate change indicators all set new record highs in 2021, the United Nations said Wednesday , warning that the global energy system was driving humanity towards catastrophe.
The WMO said human activity was causing planetary-scale changes on land, in the ocean and in the atmosphere, with harmful and long-lasting ramifications for ecosystems.The report confirmed that the past seven years were the top seven hottest years on record. The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change saw countries agree to cap global warming at"well below" 2 degrees Celcius above average levels measured between 1850 and 1900 - and 1.5 degrees Celcius if possible."The heat trapped by human-induced greenhouse gases will warm the planet for many generations to come. Sea level rise, ocean heat and acidification will continue for hundreds of years unless means to remove carbon from the atmosphere are invented.
Data indicate that they continued to increase in 2021 and early 2022, with monthly average CO2 at Mona Loa in Hawaii reaching 416.45 ppm in April 2020, 419.05 ppm in April 2021, and 420.23 ppm in April 2022, the report said. And it is expected that the upper 2,000m of the ocean will continue to warm in the future -"a change which is irreversible on centennial to millennial timescales", said the WMO, adding that the warmth was penetrating to ever deeper levels.
Meanwhile the report said the Antarctic ozone hole reached an"unusually deep and large" maximum area of 24.8 million sq km in 2021, driven by a strong and stable polar vortex.