London :Earth’s climate has reached a major “turning point” with the next two years likely to be the hottest on record globally, the UK Met Office has warned.
Natural climate cycles in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans are reversing and will amplify the strong manmade-driven global warming, according to a new report from the UK Met Office.
This will change weather patterns around the world including more heatwaves, the report said.
“We will look back on this period as an important turning point,” said Professor Adam Scaife, who led the Met Office analysis.
“That is why we are emphasising it, because there are so many big changes happening at once. This year and next year are likely to be at, or near, record levels of warming,” said Scaife.
The record for the hottest year was broken in 2014, when heat-waves scorched China, Russia, Australia and parts of South America, Guardian reported.
According to the new report, all the signs are that the pause in rising air temperatures is over and the rate of global warming will accelerate fast in coming years.
“None of the debate around the pause has changed our long term understanding of greenhouse-gas-driven climate change,” said Professor Rowan Sutton, at the University of Reading and who reviewed the Met Office report, said.
“The fact that 2014, 2015 and 2016 look like being among the very warmest years on record is a further reminder about climate change,” said Sutton.
The report analysed the latest data on all the key factors that combine to determine the global climate. The warming caused by carbon emissions is the largest influence and continues to rise.
PTI