KATHMANDU, Nepal-Sea levels this year posted a record high, making low-lying coastal populations ever more vulnerable to extreme weather like super-storm Haiyan, the UN said Wednesday.
In an interim report on the planet’s climate, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) also estimated that 2013 was on course to be one of the hottest since records began.
The WMO said that in 2012, concentrations of greenhouse gases hit a new high of 393.1 parts per million, a rise of 2.2 parts per million over the previous year and an increase of 41 percent since the start of the Industrial Revolution in 1750.
“Global sea level reached a new record high during March 2013,” the WMO said in its report. At 3.2 mm (0.12 inches) per year, the current average rise is double the 20th-century trend of 1.6 millimetres (0.06 inches) per year, it said adding, “The Philippines is reeling from the devastation wreaked by Typhoon Haiyan.”
The deadly typhoon and associated storm surge — which survivors have likened to a tsunami — tore through the archipelago last week, killing at least 10,000 people.
Experts say the relationship between climate change and tropical cyclones is still an open question.
