State of the Climate Report: Greenhouse gas, sea levels reached record highs in 2021: NOAA Report

Source: The post is based on the article “Greenhouse gas, sea levels reached record highs in 2021: NOAA Report” published in Down To Earth on 2nd September 2022.

What is the News?

The 32nd annual State of the Climate Report has been released.

What is the State of the Climate Report?

Published by: The report has been compiled by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and published by the American Meteorological Society(AMS).

Purpose: The report provides a comprehensive update on global climate and points out 2021 as a year of extremes and rapid swings bringing both record highs and lows. 

What are the key findings of the report?

Greenhouse Gas (GHG) concentrations are the highest in 2021. The amount of the 3 most dominant GHG (carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide) and the rate of its increase are the biggest concern. 

Year 2021 was among the six warmest years. The last seven years (2015-2021) have been the hottest years on record. 

Sea Levels: Sea levels rose for the tenth year in a row. They reached a new record of 3.8 inches or 97 millimetres above the average for 1993 when satellite measurements began.

Antarctica: Antarctica has been losing 140-160 billion tons of ice each year since 1993. In 2021, it only lost 50 billion tons because the continent also experienced an unusually high number of extreme weather events that brought large dumps of snow to inland areas.

Arctic: The Arctic had its coolest year since 2013, but 2021 was still the 13th warmest year in the 122-year record.

La Nina: La Niña conditions that began in mid-2020 continued for most of 2021. The annual global sea surface temperature in 2021 was lower than both 2019 and 2020 due in part to La Niña but was still higher than the 1991–2020 average.

Tropical Cyclones: There were around 97 tropical cyclones in 2021 above the 1991-2020 average of 87.