november

What did the record warmth of 2023 mean?

January 16, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

2023 was the warmest year in the 174 years of global temperature record-keeping. According to some analyses, it may have been the warmest year in the past 125,000 years.

There were incredible heatwaves in Arizona and Argentina. There were relentless wildfires across Canada. The wintertime ice coverage in the seas surrounding Antarctica was at unprecedented lows

The global temperatures in 2023 did not just beat prior records; they smashed them. Every month from June through November set all-time monthly temperature records. The US Northeast saw springlike temperatures at the end of the year. The high temperature in Buffalo, New York on Christmas Day was 58 degrees.

Climate scientists have been predicting the warming trend that has been ongoing over the past several decades. Indeed, computational models for 2023 called for a warm year. Various models had a variety of projected temperatures and 2023’s heat was still broadly within the range of what was projected, although certainly at the high end.

The question is whether last year was an indicator that the planet’s warming is accelerating faster than we expect or that it just was a particularly warm year because of cyclical factors such as the El Niño that appeared last spring.

One theory that is being explored is that various types of industrial pollution have previously actually served to cool the atmosphere over time and as those sources are reduced for public health reasons, the warming effects of greenhouse gases have accelerated.

Currently, there is no consensus about why it seems to be getting warmer even faster than many climate models predict. What there is no doubt about is that it is not a good thing.

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Earth Was Due for Another Year of Record Warmth. But This Warm?

Photo, posted June 8, 2023, courtesy of Anthony Quintano via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

How will we know if the world is 1.5 degrees warmer?

January 12, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The Paris Climate Agreement has a goal of limiting global warming to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. How do we know if we are succeeding and, more importantly, how would we know if we have failed?

This may seem like something fairly obvious, but it isn’t. Global temperatures are definitely creeping upward. This past year has been the warmest on record. In fact, the global average temperature was more than 1.4 degrees above pre-industrial levels. November was 1.75 degrees above pre-industrial levels. So, does that mean that our climate goals have already failed? Not really.

On a monthly scale there have already been individual months where warming has exceeded 1.5 degrees in 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, and 2023. Would an entire year above the target constitute failure? Not necessarily. There really isn’t an agreed-upon answer and that in itself represents something that could undermine global efforts to tackle climate change.

If we don’t know whether we are succeeding or failing, it is more difficult to pursue success. The United Nations IPCC says the threshold will be surpassed when average warming exceeds 1.5 degrees for 20 years. But that seems like a building a mountain highway with no guardrails and hoping to be safe.

Scientists are calling for new approaches to defining a universally agreed-upon measure of global warming that could trigger urgent action to avoid further rises. What we really don’t need are justifications and excuses for continued inaction. Clearly the climate is not waiting for us to debate the issue.

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Why We Won’t Know When We’ve Passed the 1.5-Degree Threshold

Photo, posted August 2, 2018, courtesy of J Bartlett Team Rubicon/BLM for USFS via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

The hottest year on record

December 26, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Barring some sort of massive global deep freeze late in the year, it was increasingly obvious by November that 2023 was going to be the hottest year ever recorded. After analyzing data that showed the world saw its warmest ever November, experts around the world made the call early in December.

According to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, from January to November 2023, global average temperatures were the highest on record – 1.46 degrees Celsius or 2.6 degrees Fahrenheit above the pre-industrial average. Given that the Paris Climate Accord has the goal of keeping warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius, 2023 has been an alarmingly hot year.

November itself was 1.75 degrees warmer than the pre-industrial average. The average surface air temperature for the planet was 14.22 degrees Celsius or about 57.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Now 57 degrees doesn’t sound all that warm, but we are not accustomed to thinking in terms of the average temperature for the entire planet. Keep in mind that the planetary average includes Antarctica and the polar north. The year as a whole had six record-breaking months and two record-breaking seasons.

There is no reason to hope that the warming in 2023 was an anomalous occurrence and that 2024 is apt to be cooler. With an El Niño in place in the Pacific, the new year might even be warmer than the previous one. With continued warming, extreme weather events are likely to become even more frequent and intense, exacerbating the damage and loss of life from droughts, floods, hurricanes, and wildfires.

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2023 is officially the hottest year ever recorded, and scientists say “the temperature will keep rising”

Photo, posted June 7, 2012, courtesy of NASA/Kathryn Hansen via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

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Mauna Loa Eruption And Climate Tracking | Earth Wise

January 9, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Mauna Loa, the largest active volcano in the world, erupted for the first time in nearly 40 years in late November. A 124-foot aluminum tower at the top of the volcano has been the site of carbon dioxide measurements for over 60 years but the eruption cut off power to the site, stopping the monitoring.

Carbon dioxide measurements on Mauna Loa began in 1958. The project was started by geochemist Charles Keeling and eventually taken over by his son Ralph Keeling upon his father’s death in 2005. It is the longest continuous record of the rising levels of carbon dioxide in the world.

Mauna Loa is an ideal location for carbon dioxide monitoring because it is a remote location away from both carbon dioxide sources like dense population centers and roads, and carbon sinks like areas of heavy vegetation.

There are hundreds of carbon dioxide monitoring stations around the world, including more than 70 operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, so the interruption will not stop global recordkeeping. But Mauna Loa holds significant symbolism as the first and most frequently sited source of carbon dioxide data.

There have been other interruptions in the measurements. Federal budget cuts in 1964 paused them for about 3 months. A 1984 eruption also cut off power to the facility and shut it down for about a month.

When the facility first started operating, the average carbon dioxide concentration was measured at 313 parts per million. Most recently, levels have peaked at around 421 parts per million, the greatest concentration in at least 4 million years.

Power will be restored to the Mauna Loa facility and its measurements will resume.

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Mauna Loa Eruption Threatens a Famous Climate Record

Photo, posted November 29, 2022, courtesy of L. Gallant / USGS via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Record Heat In The Arctic | Earth Wise

January 13, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

By mid-November, the Arctic stays dark around the clock and twilight does not return until the end of January. But even as winter darkness descended upon the Arctic this year, record-breaking high temperatures in the region continued. In late November, temperatures across the entire Arctic basin were 12 degrees Fahrenheit above normal and some locations saw temperatures as high as 30 degrees above normal.

The entire summer and fall in the Arctic were characterized by exceptionally warm temperatures. In June, the Siberian town of Verkhoyansk – located north of the Arctic Circle – registered a high temperature of 100.4 degrees. The refreezing of the Arctic Ocean was greatly delayed this year. The Northeast Passage along the Siberian Coast remained navigable for a record 112 days before freezing in November, breaking the previous record by more than a month. The extent of sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean in October was the lowest ever recorded for that month.

The strongest warming occurring in the Arctic is during the fall. That is because rapidly disappearing sea ice is enabling the dark waters of the Arctic Ocean to absorb heat in the summer and then radiate it back into the atmosphere until late in the fall. The Arctic region is heating up three times faster than the rest of the planet, which has led to the volume of sea ice decreasing by 2/3 in the past 40 years.

According to researchers, the extreme heat in Siberia this year would have been virtually impossible without human-caused climate change and became 600 times more likely because of human emissions of greenhouse gases.

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Record-shattering Warmth Pushes Arctic Temperatures to 12 Degrees F Above Normal

Photo, posted September 1, 2009, courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey via Flickr. Photo Credit: Patrick Kelley, U.S. Coast Guard.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Another Hot November

January 3, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

This past fall saw yet more of the high temperatures the world has been experiencing in recent times. Both the season (September through November) and the year to date were the second hottest in recorded history. November itself was the second-hottest November in the 140-year global climate record.

The high temperatures were felt at both ends of the world. Sea ice coverage across both the Arctic and Antarctic oceans fell to near-record lows in November. Arctic sea ice coverage was nearly 13% below the 1981-2010 average, while Antarctic coverage was 6.35% below average.

The average global land and ocean surface temperature for November was 1.66 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20^th century average. The year-to-date global temperature was 1.69 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20^th century average. These numbers correspond to almost a 1-degree Celsius increase, which should be compared with the Paris Climate Accord goal of keeping that increase to no more than 1.5 degrees.

November was the hottest November on record for South America, Africa, and the Hawaiian Islands. The Caribbean had its second-hottest November, and Europe had its seventh hottest on record.

The world’s average sea surface temperature ranked second warmest for the year to date and was only 0.05 degrees cooler than the all-time record.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issues monthly global climate reports and for quite some time, these reports seem to all be the same. Another new record for heat or at least another near record. We have to expect that this trend will continue at least until the world starts making progress in dealing with its root cause.

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November 2019 was 2nd hottest on record for the planet

Photo, posted July 20, 2016, courtesy of Salehin Chowdhury via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.