BRUSSELS:Last year tied with 2016 as the world's warmest on record, rounding off the hottest decade globally as the impacts of climate change intensified, the European Union's Copernicus Earth observation service said on Friday.
In the United States, the warmer temperatures contributed to a record 22 separate disasters that each caused more than a billion dollars of damage, including wildfires and hurricanes, according to a new U.S. government report.
Meanwhile, the fingerprints of climate change were also starkly visible in Europe, which experienced its hottest year on record in 2020, and in the Arctic and northern Siberia, which suffered extreme heatwaves and fires, Copernicus said.
With governments due to meet for a climate summit in Glasgow in November, the latest data prompted renewed calls for faster action to slash greenhouse gas emissions in line with the 2015 Paris Agreement to avoid catastrophic climate change.
"The key here is to - for every year and as quickly as possible - reduce the amount we emit, thus reducing the amount we actually add into the atmosphere," said Freja Vamborg, senior scientist at Copernicus.
In 2020, temperatures globally were an average of 1.25 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than in pre-industrial times, Copernicus said.
The Paris accord aims to cap the rise in temperatures to "well below" 2C and as close as possible to 1.5C to avoid the most devastating impacts of climate change.
The Arctic and northern Siberia continued to warm more quickly than the planet as a whole in 2020, with temperatures in parts of these regions averaging more than 6C above a 30-year average used as a baseline, Copernicus said.
The region also had an "unusually active" wildfire season, with fires poleward of the Arctic Circle releasing a record 244 million tonnes of CO2 in 2020, over a third more than in 2019.
Arctic sea ice continued to deplete, with July and October setting records for the lowest sea ice extent in that month.
In August, instruments documented the highest temperature ever reliably recorded, when a California heatwave pushed the temperature at Death Valley in the Mojave Desert up to 54.4C (129.92°F).
RECORD SPATE OF DISASTERS
Scientists said the latest data were consistent with growing evidence that climate change is likely to result in more intense hurricanes, fires, floods and other disasters.
In the United States, the 22 separate billion-dollar disasters were comprised of seven tropical cyclone events, 13 severe storm events, one drought and one wildfire event, according to the report published on Friday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
That total smashed the previous annual record of 16 such disasters in 2011 and 2017.
The combined costs for 2020 were $95 billion in the United States - the fourth-highest total annual cost since 1980.
The three most costly events were Hurricane Laura ($19 billion); record wildfires in the U.S. West ($16.5 billion); and the August 'derecho,' a storm in the Midwest packing hurricane-force winds ($11 billion).
"We need another dictionary to help us describe how these extremes continue to play out and unfold year after year," said Adam Smith, a NOAA climate scientist who tracks billion-dollar disasters.
The extreme year in the United States helped push up damages from natural disasters globally to $210 billion in 2020 from $166 billion the previous year, German reinsurer Munich Re said in a report published on Thursday.
The impacts were particularly punishing in developing countries, where the majority of losses from weather-related disasters are not covered by insurance, said Ernst Rauch, chief climate scientist at Munich Re.
"The consequence is that economic development, with all these economic shocks, is set back, is pushed back for years," Rauch said.
Although COVID-19 lockdowns meant global emissions of CO2 dipped in 2020 compared with recent years, the concentration of the gas accumulated in the atmosphere continued to rise.
Britain's Met Office forecast on Friday that CO2 concentrations in spring 2021 would hit levels 50% higher than before the industrial revolution, breaching a symbolic threshold for human impact on the climate.
"This is another grim milestone in the unrelenting rise of atmospheric CO2 concentration," said Heather Graven, a climate scientist at Imperial College London.
Reuters
Sun Jan 10 2021
A view of the A-68A iceberg from a Royal Air Force reconnaissance plane near South George island, Nov 18, 2020. REUTERS file pic
Gitar milik George Harrison dijangka cecah RM3.38 juta dalam lelongan
Gitar Futurama berkenaan dibeli di sebuah kedai alat muzik di Liverpool dan dimain oleh Harrison pada awal tahun 1960-an.
Lebih 800 maut akibat wabak mpox di Afrika
Sebanyak 34,297 kes direkodkan di seluruh benua itu sejak Januari lalu, termasuk 38 kes di Ghana.
AWANI Pagi: Ada apa dengan cinta ekspres?
7.30 pagi Sabtu bersama Dr. Norsafatul Aznin A.Razak, Pensyarah Kanan Jabatan Psikologi Pendidikan dan Kaunseling, Fakulti Pendidikan, Universiti Malaya dan Amni Sahira Muhammad Azam, Kaunselor Pelatih, Fakulti Pendidikan, Universiti Malaya membincangkan mengenai isu hubungan khususnya dalam soal memperjudikan hubungan dengan cinta ekspres.
Banjir Bosnia: Tiada rakyat Malaysia terkesan, Wisma Putra terus pantau rapat keadaan semasa
Setakat ini, tiada rakyat Malaysia dilaporkan terlibat atau terkesan dalam bencana alam tersebut.
19 terkorban akibat banjir, tanah runtuh di Bosnia
Sebahagian besar bandar dan kawasan pedalaman terputus hubungan akibat jalan raya yang ditenggelami air banjir.
Lelaki maut kereta terbabas langgar pokok di Manjung
Mangsa disahkan maut di lokasi oleh pihak Kementerian Kesihatan Malaysia.
Durian segar Malaysia di China habis dijual tidak sampai 24 jam
Tidak sampai 24 jam, hampir 40 tan durian segar pertama Malaysia ke China yang dipasarkan pada 26 Ogos lepas di outlet peruncitan terpilih di enam wilayah negara Tembok Besar itu habis terjual.
Keldai akaun ditahan sebabkan kerugian hampir RM60,000
Polis menahan lelaki berumur 58 tahun dipercayai keldai akaun kepada sindiket penipuan yang menawarkan kerja sambilan tidak wujud secara dalam talian sehingga menyebabkan mangsa kerugian RM59,569 baru-baru ini.
Lebih 200 maut akibat taufan Helene di AS
Seramai 200 orang disahkan maut sehingga Jumaat selepas Taufan Helene melanda beberapa negeri di tenggara Amerika Syarikat (AS), menjadikannya ribut paling membahayakan kedua yang melanda AS dalam lebih setengah abad.
Taiwan laksana operasi pembersihan selepas taufan Krathon
Taiwan sedang giat membersihkan kerosakan akibat banjir dan angin kencang selepas Taufan Krathon melanda bandar pelabuhan utama, sementara penduduk di sebahagian besar kawasan lain di pulau itu kembali bekerja dan pasaran kewangan dibuka semula.
Sunway jalin kolaborasi dengan EU, pacu usaha menuju masa depan yang mampan
Tahun ini, Sunway akan meneraju inisiatif unik untuk menangani kemiskinan bandar menerusi projek Cerapan Komuniti Desa Mentari.
Dewan Rakyat: Wujud 'pelobi' yang lihat industri sawit sebagai pesaing - Fadilah
Timbalan Perdana Menteri akan mengadakan pertemuan dengan Ketua Pengarah Alam Sekitar di bawah Suruhanjaya EU, Florika Fink-Hooijer pada 28 Jun ini.
Rusia umum bakal usir 20 diplomat dari Republik Czech
Ia sebagai tindak balas Republik Czech yang menghalau 18 diplomat Rusia pada Sabtu.
Vaksin COVID-19: Sekatan eksport EU akibatkan situasi 'rugi-rugi'
Kenyataan dikeluarkan seorang eksekutif Pfizer susulan blok itu memperketatkan pengawasan penghantaran vaksin di luar sempadannya.
Eksport biodiesel Malaysia dijangka susut tahun ini - MBA
Presiden Persatuan Biodiesel Malaysia (MBA), UR Unnithan berkata eksport biobahan api berasaskan sawit dianggarkan mencecah 378,582 tan pada tahun lepas.
Suruhanjaya Eropah umum lanjut mekanisme eksport vaksin COVID-19
Mekanisme ini bertujuan memastikan pengeluar vaksin memenuhi komitmennya kepada negara anggota Kesatuan Eropah (EU) terlebih dahulu.
COVID-19: EU gesa ketelusan syarikat pembuat vaksin
Ia susulan kelewatan penghantaran vaksin oleh dua syarikat, yang menjejaskan pelancaran program vaksin di beberapa negara anggota EU.
Malaysia mulakan tindakan undang-undang ke atas EU berikutan kempen antiminyak sawit
KPPK telah memulakan tindakan undang-undang terhadap Kesatuan Eropah (EU) serta negara-negara anggotanya berikutan kempen antiminyak sawit.
Tidak peduli rayuan Itali, Kesatuan Eropah akhirnya tampil mohon maaf
Selepas Rom mendakwa permohonan bantuan perubatan dalam usaha memerangi pandemik COVID-19 tidak mendapat respons bulan lalu, Kesatuan Eropah (EU) tampil membuat permohonan maaf kepada negara itu.
COVID-19: Itali dakwa 'dipinggirkan' EU, terima bantuan China
Rom sebelum ini ada meminta bantuan daripada Kesatuan Eropah (EU), namun tidak dipedulikan sehingga China sendiri menghantar bantuan pakar dan alatan perubatan.