A few days after the European agency Copernicus, the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency published its report for the year 2021.
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Global warming is well underway. The last nine years are among the “top 10” hottest years since the beginning of the surveys in 1880, and 2021 is sixth, according to the annual report of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA), released Thursday, January 13. And the missing tenth year does not go back far, since it is 2010 (placed in ninth position).
This trend had already been underlined on Monday by the European Copernicus Earth Observation Service, which had highlighted that the last seven years have been so “clean” hottest ever. It had ranked 2021 in fifth place, but it’s not uncommon for agencies to have slight differences in their data.
According to NOAA, 2021 is turning out to be the sixth hottest year since 1880. The 2021 average was pulled down by the La Niña weather phenomenon, which tends to cool temperatures, NOAA notes. The average temperature recorded last year was 1.04 ° C higher than the pre-industrial era (1880-1900).
The goal of the Paris agreement is to contain global warming “clearly” below +2 ° C, and if possible at +1.5 ° C, compared to the pre-industrial era. But the emission reduction commitments made by the various countries, including those announced at the COP26 in November, leave the world on a warming trajectory of 2.7 ° C, a level qualified as “catastrophic” by the UN.
The current global warming, of unprecedented speed and magnitude, is clearly attributable to human activities and in particular to fossil fuels (gas, oil, coal), which have been used massively since the Industrial Revolution. The year 2021 was marked by many natural disasters.