The United Nations weather agency has said that 2021 has joined the list of seven warmest years on record.
The UN agency also said that 2021 was the seventh consecutive year when the global temperature has been more than 1°C above pre-industrial levels, edging closer to the limit laid out under the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.
According to six leading international datasets consolidated by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), 2021 was still one of the seven warmest years on record, although average global temperatures were temporarily cooled by the 2020-2022 La Niña events.
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The WMO noted that global warming and other long-term climate change trends are expected to continue because of record levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
While the average global temperature in 2021 was about 1.11 (± 0.13) °C above the pre-industrial era levels, the Paris Agreement calls for all countries to strive towards a limit of 1.5°C of global warming through concerted climate action and realistic Nationally Determined Contributions – the individual country plans that need to become a reality to slow down the rate of heating.
WMO said that it uses six international datasets “to ensure the most comprehensive, authoritative temperature assessment”, and the same data are used in its authoritative annual State of the Climate reports.
WMO explained that since the 1980s, each decade has been warmer than the previous one, adding that “this is expected to continue.”
Apart from an exceptionally strong El Niño event that occurred in 2016, which contributed to record global average warming, the warmest seven years have all been since 2015; the top three being 2016, 2019 and 2020.
