Global climate predictions covering the next five years indicate that record-breaking heat should be expected. This will follow 2024’s record-setting heat levels.
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According to a report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) released Wednesday, heat over the coming years is expected to increase “climate risks and impacts on societies, economies and sustainable development.” The Associated Press described the predicted temperatures as “killer.”
Already, increasing temperatures have proved to be fatal. Per a 2023 fact sheet from the World Health Organization, research attributed 37% of heat-related deaths to human-induced climate change and indicated that heat-related deaths among those over 65 have risen by 70% over the past two decades. That fact sheet also said that, between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause approximately 250,000 additional deaths per year.
Data updated this year from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency showed that heat-related deaths reached new highs in the U.S. during 2021 and 2022. Those were some of the hottest years on record, with multiple heat waves reported.
While 2024 stands as the warmest year on record globally, the new report from WMO indicates that there is an 80% chance that at least one of the next five years will exceed it. Additionally, arctic warming is predicted to continue, with further reductions in sea ice predicted in the Barents Sea, Bering Sea, and Sea of Okhotsk.
“Every additional fraction of a degree of warming drives more harmful heatwaves, extreme rainfall events, intense droughts, melting of ice sheets, sea ice, and glaciers, heating of the ocean, and rising sea levels,” said the WMO.
Impacts are expected all around the planet, from “wetter than average conditions in the Sahel, northern Europe, Alaska and northern Siberia,” to “drier than average conditions for this season over the Amazon.”
The WMO Lead Centre for Annual to Decadal Climate Prediction and the U.K.’s Met Office worked together to create the report.
“We have just experienced the ten warmest years on record. Unfortunately, this WMO report provides no sign of respite over the coming years, and this means that there will be a growing negative impact on our economies, our daily lives, our ecosystems and our planet,” explained WMO Deputy Secretary-General Ko Barrett.
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