WMO has compiled and consolidated last year's temperature data from a number of different organizations in the world. A report states that 2019, globally, is the second warmest year to date. In Europe the hottest.
The global average temperature last year was 1.1 degrees warmer than the average for the years 1850-1900, which is the only measured time period showing the temperatures before industrialization.
- Only 2016 has been warmer and it was a year when the weather phenomenon of el Niño was unusually powerful which caused the average temperature on the entire planet to rise further, says SVT's meteorologist Nils Holmqvist.
With 2019 at the very top of the list, it is clear that in 2015 and beyond, it was the warmest recorded during the more than 150 years that measurements were made.
In the report, WMO also notes that it is not only the average temperature that has risen exceptionally. The decline in sea ice as well as the melting of glaciers and other land ice has also been exceptionally rapid in recent years.
- We can see that it is time to raise the warning flag. We don't just see how it gets hotter. We also see the consequences it has for animals and people, says Omar Baddour, a researcher at WMO.
Omar Baddur also addresses how extreme events such as heat waves, floods and droughts have affected the population worldwide.
- People migrate because of drought. You become a refugee in your own country because of floods, he says.