My Daily Advertiser Op Ed column for Tuesday 2 April 2024

by ray goodlass

Climate crisis worsens

The UN found 2023 was the hottest year on record, ocean heat reached a record temperature, the global mean sea level reached a record high and Antarctic ice reached a record low. This means that last year broke every single climate indicator, the ABC reports.

That’s according to the World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Global Climate report, which found millions are going hungry and hundreds of thousands are being displaced from their homes thanks to “heatwaves, floods, droughts, wildfires and intense tropical cyclones”, as Crikey noted. Let’s look at this in more detail, as it is so important it can’t be ignored.

The UN agency’s annual State of the Global Climate report confirmed it wasn’t just the hottest year on record, ocean heat reached its highest level since records began, global mean sea level also reached a record high and Antarctic sea ice reached a record low, the ABC reported.

The impacts of extreme weather and climate events up-ended life for millions of people across the world and inflicted billions of dollars in economic losses, according to the WMO, the Guardian Australia reported.

“Extreme climate conditions exacerbated humanitarian crises, with millions experiencing acute food insecurity and hundreds of thousands displaced from their homes,” WMO Secretary General Professor Celeste Saulo said. 

“Heatwaves, floods, droughts, wildfires and intense tropical cyclones wreaked havoc on every continent and caused huge socio-economic losses.” 

Ocean heat reached its highest level in the 65 years it’s been recorded, with the WMO’s analysis showing a strong increase in the past two decades.

The report found on an average day in 2023, nearly one third of the global ocean was gripped by a marine heatwave, harming vital ecosystems and food systems.

Towards the end of 2023, over 90 per cent of the ocean had experienced heatwave conditions at some point during the year.

Ocean heat content reached its highest level in 2023, the global ocean experienced an average daily marine heatwave coverage of 32 per cent, well above the previous record of 23 per cent in 2016. (Supplied: World Meteorological Organization)

That heating is expected to continue, with the report stating it could be ‘irreversible on scales of hundreds to thousands of years’. 

Increased temperatures are not just impacting the warmth of the ocean, there are other flow on effects, including sea level rise.

“The ocean, which covers around 70 per cent of the Earth’s surface, absorbs heat and CO2, which can act to slow the rate of warming in the atmosphere,” the report explained. 

“However, the heat absorbed by the ocean leads to ocean warming which, together with the melting of ice on land, raises sea levels.

“The ocean also absorbs CO2 leading to ocean acidification.”

The report found that global mean sea level reached a record high, with the rate of sea level rise in the past 10 years more than doubling since the first decade of the satellite record (1993–2002).

Glaciers in North America and the European Alps suffered massive losses after experiencing an extreme melt season, according to the WMO.

In Switzerland, glaciers lost around 10 per cent of their remaining volume in the last two years. 

It also found the global set of reference glaciers for the hydrological year 2022-2023 experienced the largest loss of ice on record from 1950-2023.

Sea ice saw similar retreats, with Arctic sea ice extent well below normal and Antarctic sea ice at an absolute record low. 

“(Antarctic) Ice extent was at a record low for the time of year from June till early November, and the annual maximum in September was around 1 million km2 below the previous record low maximum,” the report said.

Concentrations of the three main greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide all reached record high observed levels.

“The long-term increase in global temperature is due to increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,” the report stated. 

Lest readers think all this is irrelevant to us please remember that it means increased extreme weather events, large parts of Australia being swamped by rising seas, reduced agricultural efficiency, food scarcity, increased food prices, intolerable summer temperatures, and of course climate refugees whose homelands are even worse affected than ours is.