UN reports ‘off the charts’ melting of glaciers

UN reports ‘off the charts’ melting of glaciers

The UN agency says the last eight years have been the warmest ever with concentration of green house gases hitting new peaks. 

The world’s glaciers melted at dramatic speed last year and saving them is effectively a lost cause, the United Nations reported on Friday, as climate change indicators once again hit record highs.

The last eight years have been the warmest ever recorded, while concentrations of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide hit new peaks, the UN’s World Meteorological Organization said.

“Antarctic sea ice fell to its lowest extent on record and the melting of some European glaciers was, literally, off the charts,” the WMO spelled out as it launched its annual climate overview.

Sea levels are also at a record high, having risen by an average of 4.62 millimetres per year between 2013 and 2022 — double the rate it was between 1993 and 2002.

Record high temperatures were recorded in the oceans — where around 90% of the heat trapped on Earth by greenhouse gases ends up.

The 2015 Paris Agreement saw countries agree to cap global warming at “well below” two degrees Celsius above average levels measured between 1850 and 1900 — and 1.5 degrees Celsius if possible.

source the Hindu