The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said that the period from 2011 to 2020 will be the hottest decade in human history since records began. The report, released at the ongoing United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in the United Arab Emirates, said weather has become more extreme this decade, a harsh reality caused by climate change. Countries need to take more ambitious climate action to achieve the global warming targets of the Paris Agreement.

"More extreme heat, more challenges"

The World Meteorological Organization has announced that 2023 will be the hottest year on record. "This year almost the whole world experienced heat waves. "El Nino conditions in 2023 greatly increase the likelihood of record-breaking heat, triggering more extreme heat on land and in the ocean, making the challenge even more acute." Petrie Taalas, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization, said at the launch of one of the organization's annual reports in November.

States such as Arizona and California have been scorched by scorching temperatures for days in July. The Amazon rainforest in South America suffered its worst drought in a century this year; Many parts of southern Europe and North Africa also experienced persistent and extreme heat, with Italy, Tunisia and Morocco reporting extreme heat of 48.2 degrees Celsius, 49 degrees Celsius and 50.4 degrees Celsius, respectively, all breaking local records.

Rising temperatures increase the risk of forest fires. This year's wildfire season in Canada lasted more than five months and burned more than 180,000 square kilometers. At least 99 people were killed in the Maui wildfire in the US state of Hawaii in August, making it the deadliest wildfire in the US in a century. In the same month, more than 10 days of wildfires in northeastern Greece killed dozens of people, making it the worst wildfire in the European Union so far this year.

Zhu Dingzhen, chief scientist of the science popularization Studio of the Public Meteorological Service Center of the China Meteorological Administration, said in an interview with Xinhua that in recent years, extreme hot weather around the world has lasted for a long time and affected a large range, and the historical extreme value has been continuously broken through.

"More, more intense and more frequent heavy rains and flooding"

In addition to extreme heat, global warming has also led to changes in global and regional precipitation, frequent rainstorms and floods, causing serious damage and loss of life. "As the planet warms, we will see more, more intense and more frequent rainstorms and floods, leading to more severe flooding," said Uhlenbroek, director of the WMO's Hydrology, Water and Cryosphere Division.

In late October this year, as the "Horn of Africa" region entered the rainy season, Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia in the region suffered sustained heavy rains and caused floods. Kenya's meteorological service predicts heavy rains will continue until January. Somalia's Disaster Management Authority announced in late November that at least 96 people have been killed and some 2.3 million affected by flooding caused by heavy rains over the past month. The World Food Program estimates 4.3 million people in Somalia could be extremely hungry by the end of the rainy season in December.

In September this year, a cyclone in the Mediterranean brought heavy rainfall, affecting Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey and Libya, and causing heavy casualties in Libya; In May, Tropical Cyclone Mucha made landfall in Myanmar from the Bay of Bengal. It was the strongest tropical cyclone to hit Myanmar in more than a decade. In February and March, Tropical Cyclone Freddy hit southern Africa and was one of the longest-lasting tropical cyclones in the world, causing hundreds of deaths and injuries.

Rising sea surface temperatures caused by global warming are causing typhoons and tropical cyclones to develop more rapidly and therefore pose a greater threat to coastal areas, Zhu said.

"Reducing greenhouse gas emissions must be a top priority"

Taalas said: "The weather is becoming more and more extreme, with a clear impact on socio-economic development. Numerous studies have shown a significant increase in the risk of severe heat, especially in the last decade (2011 to 2020)."

"Since the 1990s, each decade has been warmer than the previous decade, and there is no sign of an immediate reversal of this trend." The oceans are warming faster and faster, and we are losing the opportunity to save melting glaciers and ice caps. Greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are undoubtedly the main cause of climate change. We must make reducing greenhouse gas emissions a top priority to prevent runaway climate change." "Said Taras.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned during the heat wave in many parts of the world this summer, "The era of global warming is over, and the era of global boiling has arrived." He called on the international community to take action on emissions reductions, climate adaptation and climate finance to "stop the worst from happening".