5:59 v originále: Climate expert on the record-breaking temperature streak

Global temperatures keep rising and so does the sea level. Glaciers are shrinking and the greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere are approaching a critical volume. These data are part of a comprehensive 2023 report released by Copernicus, a European observation programme for monitoring the planet and its environment. It might be too late to avert the trend. How should we prepare for new life conditions then? How to plan future cities? What changes should we make in the agricultural sector? And what kind of summer is ahead of us?

There appears to be a climate pattern: since 2007 the planet Earth has experienced ten years with record breaking temperatures. Last year was no exception, it was again the warmest on record.

„There is no doubt that 2023 was very unusual with respect to the climate of the last few years, of the last few decades. And you know lately it was very odd, very unlikely or very different with respect to the climate of the last 100 000 years or so,“ says Carlo Buontempo, director of Copernicus climate change service in an interview for the 5:59 podcast.

You can listen to a special episode of the podcast 5:59 in the audio player:

Considering Copernicus robust data set, Buontempo points to a range of worrisome issues: the greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere keep increasing, while the volume of glaciers and sea ice is shrinking and the sea level keeps rising. „The sea level has gone up by another three millimetres in 2023. But probably the story of the day is the fact that it keeps going up relentlessly, three millimetres after three millimetres. And this sums up to a bit more than ten centimetres since I was at university,“ Buontempo asserts, calling the rise a big chunk of water. He graduated from a university some twenty years ago.

This physicist and climate researcher has bad news for humankind. According to him, the sea level will keep rising regardless of our efforts to combat climate change. Still, we could do something about it. „We have control on how much it will rise and that's quite critical,“ he says, stressing that it will be generations in distant future who will have to deal with the global warming consequences.

„We won't be the one benefiting from or being penalised by our decision,“ he adds.

Nevertheless, climate change is already having a big impact in the present time. The common wisdom has it that it is all about the heat, but twists and turns of the climate can deliver unexpected periods of very cold waves like the one the agricultural sector has just experienced this spring. The unusual frost destroyed much of the crops.

Carlo Buontempo predicts cold weather in the spring will become more frequent, resulting in some plants not surviving the new conditions. Some other plants might react accordingly and change their organic properties. It should lead people to rethink how food is produced, notes Buontempo.

The Copernicus expert believes that changes are needed in some other areas of human activities - like the planning of cities. According to Buontempo, architects and city planners should take into account the summer heat waves and come up with green infrastructure, spots providing shade and water accessibility.

Will the summer of 2024 be one of the brutal ones temperature-wise? And are we yet again in for the hottest year in history given the 11 warmest month streak on record that includes this past April?

Buontempo points to La Niña, a cooling effect that might emerge in the equatorial Pacific at the end of this summer. This climate phenomenon might bring the temperatures down. Still, this year is on track to be the warmest on record once again, the expert adds.

As a majority of scientists, Carlo Buontempo believes that society must start mitigating climate change at this very moment. „If we are really good and we put our act together, by the end of a century we may be able to go back to a climate as cold as the climate we have now,“ he says, predicting that the world will keep warming up in the foreseeable future.

What is our climate change knowledge based on? Are the scientists monitoring all corners of the planet ? And do politicians take cue from scientific findings? Listen to the whole interview via the audio player at the top of the article.