WMO forecasts 90% chance Earth to be hotter by end-2025 than Paris goal

…Atlantic Ocean to brew more potentially dangerous hurricanes

…For this year, large parts of Northern Hemisphere lands to be 1.4 degrees warmer

…Africa, already hit by $15bn climate cost, to come off worse than other regions

Ben Eguzozie, in Port Harcourt

A new World Meteorological Organization (WMO) forecast predicts that for the next several years there is a 90 per cent chance that the world will set yet another record for the hottest by the end of 2025, with the Atlantic Ocean to continue to brew more potentially dangerous hurricanes than it used to.

Additionally, meteorologists have said there is a 40 per cent chance that the world will get so hot in the next five years that it will temporarily push past the temperature limit the Paris Climate Agreement is trying to prevent.

For this year, the meteorologists say large parts of land in the Northern Hemisphere will be 1.4 degrees (0.8 degrees Celsius) warmer than recent decades and that the U.S. Southwest’s drought will continue, the Associated Press reported.

The 2015 Paris Climate Agreement set a goal of keeping warming to a few tenths of a degree warmer from now.

The report said there is a 40% chance that at least one of the next five years will be 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than pre-industrial times — the more stringent of two Paris goals.

Already, the world is 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than pre-industrial times.

Last year, the same meteorological group forecasted a 20 per cent chance of warmness happening.

Analysts adduce that the doubling of the odds is due to improvements in technology that show the world has “actually warmed more than we thought already.”

Leon Hermanson, a climate scientist at the United Kingdom’s Meteorological Centre explained that the forecast situation is more so, due to the casually-monitored polar regions.

“It’s a warning that we need to take strong action,” Hermanson told The Associated Press.

If the forecasts manifest, then Africa, a continent though the least Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emitter, will be potentially worse off than all other regions of the world. The continent is already hit by $15 billion climate cost annually, according to the African Development Bank (AfDB) evaluations; with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicting that the cost would increase to $50 billion by 2040.

Meanwhile, Michael Mann, Pennsylvania State University climate scientist, who wasn’t part of the new meteorological report, said he is “almost certain” that the world will exceed the Paris warming threshold at least once in the next few years.

But Mann said one or two years above 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) isn’t as worrisome as when the overall trend of temperatures stays above that level.

“That won’t happen probably for decades and could still be prevented,” Mann said.