Last April was the hottest on record since 1880, with an increase of 1.1 degrees Celsius compared to those calculated between 1951 and 1980 average month, while 2015 was the warmest and 2016 could break that record.
Carlos Gay, coordinator of the Research Program on Climate Change UNAM, and responsible for the Group on Climate Change and Solar Radiation Center of Atmospheric Sciences, said that the first four months of this year have beaten records already as the hottest.
He recalled that also October, November and December, were the warmest compared with the same months of previous years. That is, “we have seven consecutive months that have broken records.”
There is no question of global warming. “The climate is changing,” said the scientist at a press conference.
However, this phenomenon is not “equal”; that is, it did not happen the same way in all parts of the world. At very high latitudes, such as Alaska, Russia and Greenland, and others, such as North Africa, suffered temperatures up to four degrees above average.
Much of Asia, Eastern Europe, Australia, Brazil, the northwestern United States and western Canada added two degrees above average. Therefore, the impacts are different.
In Mexico, located in the strip between tropics, “this is going to go wrong almost all the time”. Living with two degrees above average means a lot in terms of climate change, he added.
The gap in adaptation to climate change grows: for developing nations, subtropical, the cost will be higher.
Mexico, for example, is responsible for between 1.4 and 1.5 of global emissions of greenhouse gases and will be greatly affected, but some Pacific islands, with zero emissions, are already disappearing by rising sea levels caused by the global warming.
At this time, he said, “we should invest resources to try to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.”
In Mexico they have already taken action, but require many more. “We have on the one hand an environmental law and climate change, and secondly, energy reform.”
NTX / JRR / WEATHER / NAL / ECO / OZONO16
