Even though the number of reported disaster events decreased in 2022, economic losses increased mainly due to a series of flooding events in Australia. Last year’s flood damage of U.S.$8.5 billion was over four times the 20-year average from 2002 to 2021.
“Early warning is one of the most effective ways of reducing damage from disasters, as it empowers people to make risk-informed decisions for food security, as well as other sectors,” said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.
“Despite continuous efforts to strengthen multi-hazard early warning systems, the present report clearly shows that there are still significant gaps to be addressed to strengthen these systems to reduce the adverse impacts of hydrometeorological hazards in the region.”
El Nino this year might make it worse
The WMO said the three-year-long La Nina event, from 2020 to the start of 2023, had a temporary cooling influence, though 2022 still ranks within the top ten warmest years for the region, with the mean temperature of 0.2 to 0.3 degrees Celsius higher than during the last intense La Nina event in 2011.
The report said that prominent marine heatwaves persisted for over six months in a vast region northeast of Australia and south of Papua New Guinea, specifically in the Solomon and Coral Seas.
The region has now entered El Nino, which means drier and hotter weather.
“This will have a big impact on the South-West Pacific region as it is frequently associated with higher temperatures, disruptive weather patterns and more marine heatwaves and coral bleaching,” said Taalas.
According to the WMO, the upper ocean (between zero and 700 meters below the surface) has warmed since 1993 in most of the Pacific’s South-West region.
The report said that many regions in the Pacific region, including the Solomon Sea, Banda and Timor Seas, and regions east of the Philippines and the southern shoreline of Indonesia, have experienced significant warming, with the rates two to three times higher than the global average.
The WMO said the glacier size in the western part of the Indonesian island of New Guinea decreased by 15% from 0.27 to 0.23 square kilometers between July 2021 and April 2022, while ice thickness dropped 24 meters from June 2010 to early 2021, with only 6 meters remaining in December 2022.
July had warmest ocean temperature
Earlier this month, another report from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, or C3S, said the global average sea surface temperatures continued to rise after a long period of unusually high temperatures since April 2023, reaching a new high of 20.96 degrees Celsius (69.73 degrees Fahrenheit) in July.
Global ocean temperatures are usually warmest in March, so scientists say the record will likely keep increasing.
Overall, the global mean sea surface temperature for the month surpassed the 1991-2020 average by 0.51 degrees Celsius, Copernicus said in its report on July 8.
For July, the North Atlantic recorded temperatures of 1.05 C higher than usual, while marine heatwaves were observed south of Greenland, in the Labrador Sea, within the Caribbean region, and throughout the Mediterranean Sea.
“These records have dire consequences for both people and the planet exposed to ever more frequent and intense extreme events,” said Samantha Burgess, Deputy Director of the C3S.
“2023 is currently the third warmest year to date at 0.43ºC above the recent average, with the average global temperature in July at 1.5°C above pre industrial levels.”
