State of Global Climate 2019

News: World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) released provisional State of Global Climate Report 2019 at the Conference of Parties 25 (CoP 25) in Madrid on December 3, 2019. The final Statement on the State of the Climate with complete 2019 data will be published in March 2020.

Facts:

Key takeaways from provisional State of Global Climate 2019

• High Temperatures in 2019: The global average temperature in 2019 (January to October) was about 1.1 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial period. 2019 is expected to be the second or third warmest year on record. 2016 remains the warmest year.
• Record greenhouse gas concentrations: Concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere hit a record level of 407.8 parts per million in 2018 and continued to rise in 2019.
• Acceleration of global mean sea-level rise: In October 2019, the global mean sea level reached its highest value since the beginning of the high-precision altimetry record (January 1993). This is because of the melting of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica.

Additional Information:

World Meteorological Organization (WMO):

• It is an intergovernmental organization with a membership of 192 Member States and Territories. It is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) for meteorology, operational hydrology, and related geophysical sciences. 
• Other than the annual State of Climate report, WMO releases Greenhouse Gas Bulletin annually.
• WMO was established by the ratification of the WMO Convention on 23 March 1950. It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.
• It originated from the International Meteorological Organization (IMO), which was established after the 1873 Vienna International Meteorological Congress.