global warming

Met Office: New global temperature records on the horizon

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https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/news-and-media/media-centre/weather-and-climate-news/2023/global-temperatures-set-to-reach-new-records-in-next-five-years

There is a 98% chance that one of next five years will be the warmest year on record for the globe.

That is the finding from the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) latest report: the Global Annual to Decadal Climate Update published today.

The report, which has been produced by the Met Office for the WMO, also cites there is a two-in-three chance that global average temperature in at least one of the next five years (2023-2027) will temporarily exceed 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

Dr Leon Hermanson is one of the Met Office scientists behind the report. He said: “Today’s report shows that the next five years are expected to bring new temperature records.

“These new highs will be fuelled almost completely by the rise of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but the anticipated development of the naturally-occurring El Nino event will also release heat from the tropical Pacific.”

Key findings at a glance

  • There is 66% chance that annual global surface temperature will temporarily exceed 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels for at least one of the next five years
  • There is a 98% likelihood that at least one of the next five years will be the warmest on record
  • El Niño and human-induced climate change will likely combine to fuel global temperature increase next year
  • Arctic heating is predicted to be more than three times higher than the global average

What does this mean for the Paris Agreement?

“This report does not mean that we will permanently exceed the 1.5°C level specified in the Paris Agreement which refers to long-term warming over many years. However, WMO is sounding the alarm that we will breach the 1.5°C level on a temporary basis with increasing frequency,” said WMO Secretary-General Prof. Petteri Taalas.

“Global temperatures are predicted to continue increasing, moving us further and further away from the climate we are used to,” said the Met Office’s Dr Leon Hermanson.

Key points

  • The average global temperature in 2022 was about 1.15°C above the 1850-1900 average. The cooling influence of La Niña conditions over much of the past three years temporarily reined in the longer-term warming trend. However, La Niña ended in March 2023 and an El Niño is forecast to develop in the coming months. Typically, El Niño increases global temperatures in the year after it develops – in this case this would be 2024.
  • The annual mean global near-surface temperature for each year between 2023 and 2027 is predicted to be between 1.1°C and 1.8°C higher than the 1850-1900 average. This is used as a baseline to represent pre-industrial temperature before the emission of greenhouse gases from human and industrial activities.
  • There is a 98% chance of at least one in the next five years beating the temperature record set in 2016, when there was an exceptionally strong El Niño.
  • The chance of the five-year mean for 2023-2027 being higher than the last five years is also 98%.
  • Arctic warming is disproportionately high. Compared to the 1991-2020 average, the temperature anomaly is predicted to be more than three times as large as the global mean anomaly when averaged over the next five northern hemisphere extended winters.
  • Predicted precipitation patterns for the May to September 2023-2027 average, compared to the 1991-2020 average, suggest increased rainfall in the Sahel, northern Europe, Alaska and northern Siberia, and reduced rainfall for this season over the Amazon and parts of Australia.

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/news-and-media/media-centre/weather-and-climate-news/2023/global-temperatures-set-to-reach-new-records-in-next-five-years

Continue ReadingMet Office: New global temperature records on the horizon

Record hot March caps warmest 12 months on record — report

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https://www.dw.com/en/record-hot-march-caps-warmest-12-months-on-record-report/a-68772772

Since June 2023, every month has been the “hottest ever” on record. Image: Gareth Fuller/PA Wire/empics/picture alliance.

The past 10 months have all been the hottest on record. The average global temperature in March was 1.68 degrees Celsius warmer than the pre-industrial average.

Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said on Tuesday that March 2024 was the warmest on record, making it the tenth consecutive month to break heat records.

Last month was 0.1 degrees Celsius warmer than the previous March, and 1.68 degrees Celsius hotter than an average March between the years 1850-1900, the reference period for the pre-industrial era.

Above-average temperatures were recorded in parts of Africa, South America, Greenland and Antarctica.  Sea surface temperatures also hit a “shocking new high,” the report said.

Hottest 12-month period

The average temperature for the 12-month period ending in March was 1.58 degrees Celsius warmer than the pre-industrial average, making it the warmest 12-month period on record.

This record warmth does not necessarily mean that global temperatures have broken the 1.5-degree limit set by world leaders in Paris in 2015 as such measurements are taken in decades rather than individual years, but it does show a general trend in that direction.

“It’s the long-term trend with exceptional records that has us very concerned,” Samantha Burgess, deputy director of C3S told Reuters news agency.

“Seeing records like this — month in, month out — really shows us that our climate is changing, is changing rapidly,” she added.

Climate change and its effects have been seen across the globe. This year itself, Venezuela saw a record number of wildfires, and southern Africa has faced drought conditions. Warm waters in the southern hemisphere are causing a mass coral bleaching event.

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https://www.dw.com/en/record-hot-march-caps-warmest-12-months-on-record-report/a-68772772

Continue ReadingRecord hot March caps warmest 12 months on record — report

World breaches key 1.5C warming mark for record number of days

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Canadian wildfire 2023
Canadian wildfire 2023

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-66857354

The world is breaching a key warming threshold at a rate that has scientists concerned, a BBC analysis has found.

On about a third of days in 2023, the average global temperature was at least 1.5C higher than pre-industrial levels.

Staying below that marker long-term is widely considered crucial to avoid the most damaging impacts of climate change.

But 2023 is “on track” to be the hottest year on record, and 2024 could be hotter.

“It is a sign that we’re reaching levels we haven’t been before,” says Dr Melissa Lazenby, from the University of Sussex.

This latest finding comes after record September temperatures and a summer of extreme weather events across much of the world.

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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-66857354

Continue ReadingWorld breaches key 1.5C warming mark for record number of days

Not convinced on the need for urgent climate action? Here’s what happens to our planet between 1.5°C and 2°C of global warming

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Rachel Warren, University of East Anglia and Sally Brown, University of Southampton

Many numbers are bandied around in climate emergency discussions. Of them, 1.5°C is perhaps the most important. At the Paris Agreement in 2015, governments agreed to limit global warming to well below 2°C and to aim for 1.5°C. By 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – the UN body tasked with relaying the science of climate breakdown to the world – had made worryingly clear in a special report how much graver the consequences of the higher number would be.

Together with the University of Queensland’s Ove Hoegh-Guldberg and colleagues around the world, we’ve explored in newly published work just how much sticking to 1.5°C matters.

Climate breakdown is already harming livelihoods, cities and ecosystems. From heatwaves and droughts to cyclones and floods, devastating extreme weather events are more frequent, more intense and more unpredictable than they would be in the absence of global heating. Warming and acidifying oceans are causing severe coral bleaching to occur twice as often as in 1980, leaving many unable to recover.

Shrinking habitats are increasingly forcing wildlife into conflict with human settlements. Increasing wildfires are damaging vital carbon stores in North America and Siberia, while the advance of spring is throwing species who depend on each other out of sync.

The more we destabilise our climate, the greater the risk to human societies and ecosystems. Even at 1.5°C of global heating, tough times are in store for the living planet. But the space between 1.5°C and 2°C of heating is a crucial battleground, within which risks to humanity and ecosystems amplify rapidly.

Climate battleground

At 1.5°C of warming, about one in twenty insect and vertebrate species will disappear from half of the area they currently inhabit, as will around one in ten plants. At 2°C, this proportion doubles for plants and vertebrates. For insects, it triples.

A great many risks amplify between 1.5 and 2 degrees of warming.
Hoegh-Guldberg, Jacob, Taylor/IPCC

Such high levels of species loss will put many ecosystems across the world at risk of collapse. We rely on healthy ecosystems to pollinate crops, maintain fertile soil, prevent floods, purify water, and much more. Conserving them is essential for human survival and prosperity.

Between 1.5°C and 2°C, the number of extremely hot days increases exponentially. Some parts of the world can also expect less rain and more consecutive dry days, while others will receive more extreme floods. Collectively, this will place agriculture, water levels and human health under severe stress – especially in southern African nations, where temperatures will increase faster than the global average. The Mediterranean is another key area at particular risk above 1.5°C of heating, where increased drought will alter flora and fauna in a way without precedent in ten millennia.

At 1.5°C of warming, we could expect to lose between 70% and 90% of our coral reefs. While this would be catastrophic for the millions of ocean creatures and human livelihoods these beautiful ecosystems support, there would still be a chance of recovery in the long term if oceans warm slowly. But at 2°C of warming, we could kill 99% of reefs. To be clear, this is a line that once crossed cannot be easily uncrossed. It could mean the extinction of thousands of species.

Arctic sea ice has been a constant on our planet for hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of years. If we limit global heating to 1.5°C, there’s a 70% chance of it remaining that way. But at 2°C, some Arctic summers will be ice-free. Polar bears and other species who depend on frozen sea ice to eat and breed will be left homeless and struggling to survive.

Studies show that at 1.5°C, we could expect one metre of sea-level rise in 2300, with an extra 26cm at 2°C. However, between these two levels of global heating, the risk of the Greenland and West Antarctic Ice Sheets starting a slow process of decline dramatically increases. For the Greenland sheet, this is likeliest to happen at 1.6°C, with the Antarctic ice sheet’s tipping point hovering not far above this mark.

Polar bears depend on Arctic sea ice.
FloridaStock/Shutterstock

If these ice sheets melt, seas could rise by up to two metres over the next two centuries. These rises could lead to millions more people being exposed to flooding each year. Many of those living in coastal cities, deltas, or small islands will be faced with little option but to build upwards or relocate.

Way off track

The impacts of climate breakdown are accelerating. The planet has warmed by 1.1°C since 1850-79, but 0.2°C of this warming happened between 2011 and 2015 alone. The last four years were the warmest in the global temperature record.

Despite knowing all the above, many country-level commitments and action are nowhere near enough to limit warming to 2°C, let alone 1.5°C. We’re heading for 2.9°C to 3.4°C of warming. By this point, many dangerous tipping points could be crossed, leading to rainforest die-back, deadly heatwaves, and significant sea-level rise. Half of all insect and plant species are projected to disappear from more than half of the area they currently inhabit, potentially causing widespread ecosystem collapse and threatening organised human civilisation itself.

Limiting warming to 1.5°C will save the global economy trillions of dollars in the long run, even accounting for the seemingly gargantuan cost of transitioning our energy systems. But this is more than just an economic or academic issue – its a matter of life and death for millions of humans and animal species, and a severe threat to the well-being of billions.

Tackling climate breakdown is perhaps the tallest order humanity has ever faced, and there is no simple solution. The only way forward is accepting that we must fundamentally change the way we live our lives. It won’t be an easy transition, but there is no alternative if we are to preserve the well-being of humans, wildlife, and ecosystems. The coming year is vital, and there’s too much at stake not to act now.

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Rachel Warren, Professor of Global Change, University of East Anglia and Sally Brown, Senior Research Fellow, University of Southampton

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Continue ReadingNot convinced on the need for urgent climate action? Here’s what happens to our planet between 1.5°C and 2°C of global warming

El Niño could push global warming past 1.5℃ – but what is it and how does it affect the weather in Europe?

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A natural weather event known as El Niño is underway in the Pacific Ocean.
jon sullivan/Shutterstock

Manoj Joshi, University of East Anglia

Scientists have warned that 2024 could mark the year when global warming exceeds 1.5℃ above pre-industrial levels. They attribute these predictions, at least in part, to the emergence of an El Niño event.

An El Niño is declared when the sea surface temperature in large parts of the central or eastern equatorial regions of the Pacific Ocean warms significantly – sometimes by as much as 2℃. This additional heat in turn warms the atmosphere. During El Niño years, this warming contributes to a temporary rise in the global temperature by a fraction of a degree.

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El Niño primarily affects weather in the tropics. Intense downpours that would usually fall on parts of south-east Asia or eastern Australia instead fall on the west coast of South America. This change can cause major drought and flooding on different continents, affecting food production and even weather-dependent sports like cricket.

But changes to the weather in these regions can have knock-on effects all over the world. Even thousands of kilometres away in northern Europe, El Niño tends to cause colder and drier winter weather.

Yet many factors affect European weather, especially during winter. So care is needed when linking unusual weather events in Europe to El Niño.

Storm clouds over the Andaman Sea.
Storm clouds over the Andaman Sea, Thailand.
Ian Murdoch/Shutterstock

What is El Niño?

The Pacific Ocean spans over 13,000 kilometres from its eastern edge on the South American coast to its western margins near Indonesia. The sea surface temperature changes considerably over this vast distance.

Normally, the eastern edge of the Pacific Ocean is more than 5℃ colder on average than the western Pacific. This is primarily due to the upwelling of cold water near South America, a process in which colder water is pulled up from deeper down in the ocean.

However, this temperature contrast flattens or steepens every few years in a natural cycle called the El Niño southern oscillation (Enso). During this cycle, the strength of trade winds that blow westwards across the Pacific can strengthen or weaken, causing more or less cold water to upwell and flow along the equator.

We’re currently entering a period where the eastern Pacific will be warmer than it usually is – an El Niño event. Forecasts suggest that a part of the equatorial Pacific, regarded as a key indicator of Enso, has a 50% chance of warming by over 1.5℃ by the start of 2024.

How Pacific Ocean temperatures change during an El Niño event.

La Niña is the opposite phase of the cycle. It is instead characterised by cooler sea surface temperatures in these waters. This year brought an end to three successive La Niña years.

The western tropical Pacific region has some of the warmest ocean temperatures on Earth. Humid air tends to converge here, creating unstable conditions characterised by turbulent rising air known as convection by meteorologists. The result of this is towering clouds and intense rainfall.

The region with the highest ocean temperature tends to experience the greatest amount of rainfall. As the warmest ocean temperatures shift eastward during El Niño, so too does the location of maximum cloud cover and rainfall.

Each El Niño event is different. Some mainly warm the eastern Pacific Ocean, such as the 1997-98 event. Others cause more warming in the central Pacific, like in 2009-10.

How does it affect Europe’s climate?

Towering clouds and intense rains in the western Pacific create atmospheric waves known as Rossby waves. These waves extend over thousands of kilometres and travel into and along the eastward-flowing jet streams that encircle the planet’s mid-latitude regions. When the Rossby waves interact with the jet streams, they cause them to undulate.

As unsettled weather in the Pacific moves eastwards during an El Niño event, it influences the location of the peaks and troughs of these Rossby waves. This results in subtle changes in the positions of the jet streams. These alterations in the jet streams, which play a significant role in shaping weather patterns, can have notable effects on weather conditions worldwide.

Depending on the specific movement of the jet stream in a particular area, the effect can either lead to warmer or cooler weather, despite El Niño warming the global climate as a whole. El Niño tends to slightly warm Europe in summer and slightly cool northern Europe in winter.

External noise

However, a colder-than-average winter in Europe is not guaranteed during an El Niño event. Europe’s winter climate is affected by various factors beyond El Niño, including conditions in the Atlantic, the amount of Arctic sea ice and the state of the stratosphere 15-40km above us (which is itself affected by El Niño).

For instance, the quasi-biennial oscillation – a regular reversal of winds that blow high above the equator – can alter wind patterns in the stratosphere. This can subsequently affect the position of the North Atlantic storm track, which influences Europe’s winter weather.

But even then, the underlying warming trend caused by climate change is making higher temperatures more probable in all seasons. Together, these other factors make any climatic signals from El Niño harder to detect and forecast. Caution must therefore be exercised before attributing anomalies in European winter weather to El Niño alone.

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Manoj Joshi, Professor of Climate Dynamics, University of East Anglia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Continue ReadingEl Niño could push global warming past 1.5℃ – but what is it and how does it affect the weather in Europe?