Last year was the Earth’s second-hottest since records began, and the world should brace itself for more extreme weather events like the bushfires ravaging much of Australia, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Wednesday. The Geneva-based WMO combined several datasets, including two from the U.S. space administration NASA and the UK Met Office. These showed that the average global temperature in 2019 was 1.1 degree Celsius (2.0 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, creeping towards a globally agreed limit after which major changes to life on Earth are expected. “Unfortunately, we expect to see much extreme weather throughout 2020 and the coming decades, fuelled by record levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,” said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas. Australia […]