The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) report confirms that 2024 was the hottest year on record. It is the first year to be more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial era.

With the addition of 2024 the past 10 years have been the 10 hottest in nearly 200 years of record-keeping. 2024 was the single warmest year on record as per the WMO report. In 2024, the concentration of carbon dioxide hit amounts unseen in at least two million years

At the U.N.’s COP28 climate summit WMO, an agency of the United Nations(UN) , put out a report saying that the rate of climate change has “surged alarmingly,” with 2011 to 2020 being the warmest decade on record.

Continued rising concentrations of greenhouse gases fuelled record land and ocean temperatures. And turbo-charged a dramatic acceleration in ice melt and sea level rise,

The rate of climate change surged alarmingly between 2011 – 2020, which was the warmest decade on record. The report cites that the rate of climate change “surged alarmingly” and “turbo-charged” dramatic glacier loss and sea-level rise during this period as the potent reasons for the same.

WMO

It originated from the International Meteorological Organization (IMO), which was founded in 1873. Established in 1950, WMO became the specialized agency of the United Nations in 1951. Its area of operation is for meteorology (weather and climate), operational hydrology and related geophysical sciences. Its headquarters is in Geneva, Switzerland. It is a member of the United Nations Development Group.

LEARNING FROM HOME/ WITHOUT CLASSES/ BASICS

ANTHROPOGENIC CLIMATE CHANGE is a change caused by human
activity.

CLIMATE CHANGE

Refers to any change in climate over time whether due to natural variability or as a result of human activity.

Global warming is the long-term heating of Earth’s climate system observed since the pre-industrial period (between 1850 and 1900) due to human activities, primarily fossil fuel burning, which increases heat-trapping greenhouse gas levels in Earth’s atmosphere. The term is frequently used interchangeably with the term climate change, though the latter refers to both human- and naturally-produced warming and the effects it has on our planet.

Greenhouse gases allow sunlight (shortwave radiation) to pass through the atmosphere freely, where it is then partially absorbed by the surface of the Earth. Greenhouse gases are able to trap heat (longwave radiation) in the atmosphere, keeping the Earth’s surface warmer than it would be if they were not present. These gases are the fundamental cause of the greenhouse effect. Increases in the number of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere enhances the greenhouse effect which is creating global warming and consequently climate change.

So the more greenhouse gases you have in the atmosphere, the more heat stays on Earth. The principal forcing greenhouse gases are: Carbon dioxide (CO2); Methane (CH4); Nitrous oxide (N2O); Fluorinated gases.