Global Climate Status Report-2021 released by World Meteorological Organization (WMO)
Recently the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has released the ‘Global Climate Situation Report’ for the year 2021.
This annual report gives details about the following climate indicators:
- Temperature, ocean heat, ocean acidification, sea level rise, sea ice glaciers, and extreme weather.
- This is a supplementary report to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). WMO is a specialized agency of the United Nations. The members of this organization include 193 countries and territories including India.
Key findings of the report-
- Four key climate change indicators set new records in 2021: greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations, sea level rise, ocean warming, and ocean acidification.
- The average global temperature in 2021 was about 1.11 (± 0.13) °C above the pre-industrial (1850-1900) levels.
- Global mean sea level reached a new record high in 2021. It has increased by an average of 4.5 mm per year in the period 2013-2021.
- The sea level is rising at the rate of 0 and 2.5 mm per year along almost the entire Indian coast. This is faster than the global average.
- The countries with the highest internal displacement (due to hydro-meteorological hazards) are: China, Vietnam and the Philippines.
- The ozone hole over Antarctica was unusually large and deep.
There were two main reasons for this:
- Strong and stable polar vortex, and
- A cooler-than-average climate in the lower stratosphere.
Source – The Hindu
