The world community may face more severe weather extremes than before, said Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Petteri Taalas.

According to him, 2020 began with events that have a strong influence on the weather and are related to climate, TASS reported.

He drew attention to large-scale fires in Australia and added that unfortunately much more extreme weather is expected in 2020 and the coming decade.

According to WMO, the past year was the second of the warmest in the history, while 2016 remains the warmest in the history.

The average temperature over the past five years (2015-2019) and over the decade (2010-2019) was the highest for any five and ten consecutive years during meteorological observations. Since 1980, every decade has been warmer than the previous one, and this trend is expected to continue due to record levels of heat-holding greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.