Caribbean islands such as Puerto Rico, Cuba and Hispaniola, and the Gulf of Mexico should prepare for more intense hurricanes as well as for the future effects of rising sea levels, which by the end of the century would rise at least two meters above the current level.
This was stated to EFE by Edil Sepúlveda, a scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, following yesterday’s release of a report by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which revealed that 2022 was the sixth warmest year since records began, that is, since 1880.
Sepúlveda stated that the results of the report are in line with the pattern of global warming recorded in recent decades, with the last eight years being the warmest, a trend that, if it continues, will produce long periods of drought interspersed with extreme precipitation in areas of Latin America and the Caribbean.
Catastrophic effects: hurricanes with greater intensity
Born in Puerto Rico, the scientist gave as an example the catastrophic effects caused in that Caribbean island, which suffers from a lack of adequate infrastructure, by hurricanes “Maria” (2017) and “Fionna” (2022), “something that can be repeated in any of those small island-states that are very vulnerable” and in Hispanic American countries.
“In the future we will see more of the same, more intensified,” predicted the researcher, after alluding to extreme weather events that have appeared on the planet in the last twelve months such as intense heat waves, unseasonal forest fires and hurricanes in greater number and power.
The NOAA report, which is complemented by another from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), notes that in 2022 the land and ocean surface was 0.86 degrees higher than the average of 13.9 degrees.
“And even when we had the La Niña phenomenon” that year, Sepúlveda clarified, alluding to the periodic climatic phenomenon that occurred last year and that is characterized by cooling the surface of the waters of the Pacific Ocean.
The scientist added that had it not been for this phenomenon, which is the counterpart of “El Niño” (which warms the waters of the Pacific), the land and ocean surface would have been about one degree Celsius above the average and, in that case, 2022 would have been among the three warmest years in the planet’s history.
The U.S. space agency produced a separate report that calculates that 2022 ties with 2015 as the fifth warmest year in history, in a table that tops 2020 and 2016 and confirms that global warming is not letting up, with consequent catastrophic effects for populations.
“We are not on the right track,” Sepúlveda lamented, comparing the finding of yesterday’s report with the Paris Agreement’s recommendation that the planet’s temperature not exceed 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels, in order to avoid the worst of global warming.
During a teleconference yesterday, Sarah Kapnick, NOAA’s chief scientist, said the U.S. had its third costliest year in 2022 for weather-related disaster issues, “exceeding $165 billion in damages.”
According to NOAA and NASA, 2022 was the 46th consecutive year (since 1977) with global temperatures above the 20th century average, and with the last nine years (2014-2022) among the 10 warmest years.
“It’s a trend that is growing in magnitude,” warned NASA Administrator Bill Nelson on the same teleconference, who emphasized that the report “is a call to action.“
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