Five year period from 2019 to 2023 to be warmest on record

If the observations made by the Met Office covering 2019 through 2023 track – this would make the decade from 2014 to 2023 the warmest run of years since forecasts records started being kept in 1850.

It is very possible that the global average temperature could hit 1.5 degrees Centigrade above pre-industrial levels for the first time between now and 2023. Meteorologists say there is a 10 percent chance of exceeding the 1.5 degrees C level – the lowest of the two Paris agreement targets set for the end of the century, according to The Guardian.

The Met Office

Until now, the hottest year on record was in 2016, when global average temperatures reached 1.11 degrees Centigrade above pre-industrial levels.

Professor Adam Scaife, Head of Long-Range Prediction at the Met Office said: “2015 was the first year that global annual average surface temperatures reached 1.0 °C above pre-industrial levels and the following three years have all remained close to this level. The global average temperature between now and 2023 is predicted to remain high, potentially making the decade from 2014 the warmest in more than 150 years of records.”
We are getting very close to the 1.5C level
Man-made greenhouse gasses (GHG) are adding about 0.2 degrees centigrade of warming to each decade. But if you look at global average temperature charts, you will notice they are jagged. This is due to natural variations, with hotter El Nino years causing the line to jag upward and cooler La Nina years causing the jag to drop.

The blue envelope indicates the likely range of temperatures for the period 2019 to 2023. The black line represents the observations and the red area indicates previous forecasts.

The Met Office

Included in the Met’s five-year forecast is the first possibility of a natural El Niño combining with global warming to exceed the 1.5C mark. The forecast also notes that there will be enhanced warming – especially over land and at high northern latitudes, particularly the Arctic region.

Professor Tim Osborn, director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, which co-produces the HadCRUT4 global temperature figures with the Met Office Hadley Centre, said: “The warmth of 2018 is in line with the long-term warming trend driven by the world’s emissions of greenhouse gases,” reports Phys.org.

We need to keep in mind that global warming is not limited to surface temperature warming. The effects of climate change are seen across a wide range of climate indicators that create a global picture of the changes occurring on land, the atmosphere, oceans, and ice.