New UN weather agency chief says rate of global warming is speeding up

BALTIMORE (AP) — The new chief of the World Meteorological Organization said it looks to her that the rate of human-caused climate change is accelerating and that warming has triggered more Arctic cold outbreaks in North America and Europe, weighing in on two issues that divide climate scientists.

In her first sit-down interview since taking office last month, WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo told The Associated Press that even though her agency said last year was 1.48 degrees Celsius (2.66 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, the world must “keep on with its ambition of trying not to reach 1.5” degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) on a longer-term basis, not just one year.

“We have a trend that is really worrying. The trend is very clear.”

Saulo said the world needs to act quickly but she said there are powerful economic forces that keep that from happening.

Slow efforts to curb climate change “is not about diplomacy, I think it's about power and economy,” Saulo said during a break at the American Meteorological Society's meeting in Baltimore.

“We are lagging behind our objectives because of our interests — economic interests — that are well beyond what our common sense, our diplomats and our scientists are pointing out.”

Last year former NASA top climate scientist James Hansen and others published a study saying the climate is not just getting warmer, but the rate of change is accelerating. A second study found ocean heat content, where much of Earth's trapped energy is stored, is rising at a faster rate than before.

Other scientists disagreed, saying warming, stoked by an El Nino, is still occurring at the predicted rate.

Saulo said she sees the acceleration Hansen is talking about, especially based on research by some WMO science teams. She said what bothers her is not knowing what it means for the future.

“We are not there in terms of our scientific understanding of the implications of this acceleration. We don't fully understand how it is going to evolve,” Saulo said.

Saulo, who had been the head of Argentina's meteorological office, said what worries her most is what is happening at both poles as seas warm, ice melts and society adds more heat-trapping gases.

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