New World Meteorological Organisation report released: 5 charts that tell the status of climate crisis in Asia

As Asia is warming faster than the global average, it is witnessing more extreme weather, climate, and water-related events than any other region across the world. In 2023, there were 79 events associated with hydrometeorological hazards, affecting more than nine million people and directly killing over 2,000, across Asia, according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).

Eighty percent of these events were flood and storm events, the WMO State of the Climate in Asia, 2023, report, which was published on Tuesday (April 23), said. It also mentioned that extreme heat is becoming more severe in Asia. Chart 1 below gives an overview of such events that took place in Asia last year and their impact.

Chart 1: Overview of reported disasters in 2023 associated with hydrometeorological hazards in the Asia region. ESCAP and The International Disaster Database (EM-DAT). Chart 1: Overview of reported disasters in 2023 associated with hydrometeorological hazards in the Asia region. ESCAP and The International Disaster Database (EM-DAT).

These are only a handful of facts that showcase the adverse effects of climate change on Asia. Here are four other charts that give a more comprehensive picture of the climate crisis unfolding in the region.

Temperature

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In 2023, the average annual surface temperature was 1.87 degree Celsius above the 1961–1990 average and 0.91 degree Celsius above the 1991–2020 average. Just to put it in perspective, the world has become at least 1.1 degree Celsius warmer than the pre-industrial average (1850-1900). To calculate the temperature difference, Asia and the world have different reference periods because the former has insufficient data prior to the 1900s, according to the report.

More worryingly, the rate of warming in Asia is accelerating. See chart 2, which compares Asia with five other regions: Africa, South America, North America, South-West Pacific, and Europe. Asia has gotten more warm in recent decades than other regions except Europe.

“The warming trend in Asia in 1991–2023 was almost double the warming trend during the 1961–1990 period, and much larger than the trends of the previous 30-year periods,” according to the WMO report.

Chart 2: Trends in mean surface air temperature for the six WMO regions and the global mean (degree Celsius) over four sub-periods using the six datasets. Source: WMO Chart 2: Trends in mean surface air temperature for the six WMO regions and the global mean (degree Celsius) over four sub-periods using the six datasets. Source: WMO

Glaciers

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In the glaciological year 2022-2023, 20 out of 22 observed glaciers in the High Mountain Asia (HMA) region — a high-elevation area centred on the Tibetan Plateau, which contains the largest volume of ice outside of the polar regions — showed continued mass loss. This happened primarily due to record-breaking high temperatures and dry conditions in the East Himalayas, the WMO report said.

Chart 3 shows the mass balance — the amount of mass gained or lost by the glacier and expressed in metres of water equivalent (m w.e.) — of four such glaciers in the HMA region. In the past 40 years, these glaciers have recorded significant mass losses, with an increase in the rate of mass loss since the mid-1990s.

Chart 3: Cumulative mass balance (in metres water equivalent (m w.e.)) of four reference glaciers in the High Mountain Asia region and the average mass balance of the global reference glaciers. (Source: WMO) Chart 3: Cumulative mass balance (in metres water equivalent (m w.e.)) of four reference glaciers in the High Mountain Asia region and the average mass balance of the global reference glaciers. (Source: WMO)

Precipitation

In 2023, rainfall was below normal in large parts of countries like Turkmenistan, Pakistan, and Myanmar. In India, the summer monsoon season rainfall, averaged over India from June to September, was about 6% below the 1971–2000 average. “For the second consecutive year, certain regions in south-west India, the Ganges catchment, and the lower course of the Brahmaputra received less-than-normal precipitation,” according to the report.

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Excess rainfall was observed around the lower course of the Indus River (Pakistan), the Tenasserim Range (Myanmar), in Kamchatka and the Kolyma Range (Russian Federation).

Chart 3 shows which areas received more or less rainfall in 2023 in comparison to the 1991–2020 reference period.

Chart 4: Total precipitation in 2023, expressed as a quantile of the 1991–2020 reference period, for areas that would have been in the driest 20% (brown) and wettest 20% (green) of years during the reference period, with darker shades of brown and green indicating the driest and wettest 10%, respectively. (Source: GPCC, Deutscher Wetterdienst, Germany) Chart 4: Total precipitation in 2023, expressed as a quantile of the 1991–2020 reference period, for areas that would have been in the driest 20% (brown) and wettest 20% (green) of years during the reference period, with darker shades of brown and green indicating the driest and wettest 10%, respectively. (Source: GPCC, Deutscher Wetterdienst, Germany)

Sea surface temperature (SST)

The global average sea surface temperature (SST) has been off the charts since mid-March 2023. Ocean temperatures in Asia have been no different. Last year, the worst affected was the North-west Pacific Ocean, where the area-averaged sea surface temperature anomalies were the warmest on record, according to the WMO report. See chart 5.

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Moreover, “warming of the upper-ocean (0 m–700 m) is particularly strong in the North-Western Arabian Sea, the Philippine Sea, and the seas east of Japan, more than three times faster than the global average,” the report said.