Half Of The 767.9 Million facing undernourishment in 2021 are in Asia due to Food Security induced by Climate Change
924 million of the 2.3 billion people who experienced food insecurity as of 2021 did so severely. In 2021, 767.9 million people, or 9.8% of the world's population, were predicted to be undernourished. Africa and Asia together account for half of the 767.9 million. An updated study from the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), State of the Global Climate 2022, was just made public.
The yearly report has once again focused attention on how climate change's reach expanded in 2022, affecting everything from mountain tops to ocean depths. Every continent, including India, was devastated by droughts, floods, and heatwaves, which cost many billions of dollars. The amount of Antarctic sea ice decreased to its lowest level ever, while some European glaciers virtually melted through the roof.
Heatwaves affected crop yields in India and Pakistan during the 2022 pre-monsoon season. This has threatened the availability, access to, and stability of staple foods within the international food markets and posed high risks to countries already affected by staple food shortages. This is in addition to the ban on wheat exports and restrictions on rice exports in India after the start of the conflict in Ukraine.
“India saw significant flooding at various stages during the monsoon season, particularly in the north-east in June, with over 700 deaths reported during the season from flooding and landslides, and a further 900 from lightning,” states the report.
The research shows that for the past eight years, the global mean temperature has been the highest on record. In 2022, it was 1.15 [1.02-1.28] °C above the average for the period between 1850 and 1900.
“Real-time data from specific locations show that levels of the three greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide – continued to increase in 2022,” notes the report.
The State of the Global Climate 2022 documents the planetary-scale climate changes brought on by record amounts of heat-trapping greenhouse gases on land, in the ocean, and in the atmosphere. Despite the cooling effects of a La Nia event over the previous three years, the years 2015–2022 were the eight highest on record for the global temperature. Up to thousands of years from now, glacier melting and sea level rise will continue, with 2022 setting new records.
Other significant findings in the research include the fact that the global mean sea level continued to rise in 2022 and set a new satellite altimeter record high for the period from 1993 to 2022. Between the first decade of the satellite record (1993-2002, 2.27 mm per year), and the last (2013-2022, 4.62 mm per year), the pace of global mean sea level rise has doubled.
It further mentions that in 2022, a new observed record high in ocean heat content—a measure of this increase in energy—was attained. “Despite continuing La Niña conditions, 58% of the ocean surface experienced at least one marine heatwave during 2022.”
A group of reference glaciers with extensive historical data had an average mass balance of 1.18 m water equivalent (m w.e.) during the hydrological year 2021–2022. The loss is significantly larger than the average over the previous ten years. Since 2015, six of the top 10 most unfavourable mass balance years (1950–2022) have taken place.
The report highlights that on February 25, 2022, sea ice in Antarctica reached a record low of 1.92 million km2, almost 1 million km2 below the long-term (1991-2020) mean.
During the summer, China and Europe both experienced heat waves that broke records. across Spain, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Portugal alone, there were around 15,000 excess deaths related to the heat across Europe.
“There are major gaps in the weather and climate observing networks, especially in the least developed countries (LDCs) and small island developing States (SIDS), which is an obstacle for climate baseline monitoring, especially at regional and national scales, and for the provision of early warning and adequate climate services.” notes Petteri Taalas, Secretary-General, WMO.