The climate monitoring service of the European Union said that 2020 was the hottest year on record, breaking the 2016 record and bringing humanity closer to the “point of no return.” This confirms the trend of accelerated global warming, which can turn into a disaster. This was announced in a press release at Phys.org.
According to the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), Earth's mean temperatures have risen 1.25 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels, with the Southern Oscillation, known as El Niño and affecting global temperatures, was at a minimum. The six years that have passed since 2015 are the warmest ever recorded.
In some regions, warming in 2020 far exceeded the global average. Thus, in Europe, the average surface temperature has risen by 2.2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial value. That's half a degree above the 2019 average, which was also a record hot in Europe. In the Arctic, temperatures have risen seven degrees above pre-industrial levels.
Wildfires in Siberia, which continue until autumn, have emitted a record quarter billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, equivalent to the annual emissions of Spain, Egypt and Vietnam. Carbon dioxide levels in the Earth's atmosphere peaked at 413 parts per million, nearly 50 percent more than at the beginning of the 18th century, despite a seven percent drop in emissions during the pandemic.
Even if all countries fulfill the obligations of the 2015 Paris Agreement, by the end of the century the planet will still warm by more than three degrees.
