New Delhi, June 23 -- Asia, the continent with the largest land mass and population, is currently warming nearly twice as fast as the global land and ocean average, with widespread and prolonged heat waves, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has analysed in its latest report.

The 'State of the Climate in Asia 2024' report released on June 23 highlighted how the current warming has fuelled more extreme weather in the form of droughts and floods, while wreaking a heavy toll on the region's economies and societies.

The mean anomaly for 2024 in Asia was 1.04 degrees Celsius (degrees C) above the 1991-2020 average, with average temperature ranking as the warmest or second warmest year on record (after 2020), depending on the dataset...