{"id":67722,"date":"2024-04-28T15:35:20","date_gmt":"2024-04-28T20:35:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=67722"},"modified":"2024-04-28T15:35:20","modified_gmt":"2024-04-28T20:35:20","slug":"2023-was-even-hotter-than-predicted-raising-fears-were-in-uncharted-territory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=67722","title":{"rendered":"2023 Was Even Hotter Than Predicted, Raising Fears We’re in Uncharted Territory"},"content":{"rendered":"

2023 Was Even Hotter Than Predicted, Raising Fears We’re in Uncharted Territory<\/a><\/h3>\n
\"SeaSea surface temperature anomalies for 9 April 2024.<\/span>\u00a0(NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio)<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\n
\n

Last year Earth warmed around 0.2 \u00b0C more than climate models predicted. While that may not seem like much in isolation, when you consider it’s a measure across an entire planet it amounts to a heck of a lot of unexplained heat.<\/p>\n

“It’s humbling, and a bit worrying, to admit that no year has confounded climate scientists’ predictive capabilities more than 2023 has,”\u00a0writes<\/a>\u00a0NASA climatologist Gavin Schmidt in an article for\u00a0Nature<\/em>.<\/p>\n

“The 2023 temperature anomaly has come out of the blue, revealing an unprecedented knowledge gap perhaps for the first time since about 40 years ago, when satellite data began offering modellers an unparalleled, real-time view of Earth’s climate system.”<\/p>\n

Schmidt warns if this unexplained anomaly doesn’t settle by August, in line with previous El Ni\u00f1o fluctuations, then we will be in uncharted territory.<\/p>\n

Several theories<\/a>\u00a0have been posed for the excess heat beyond what is expected from the El Ni\u00f1o and known rates of increasing CO2<\/sub>. These include a\u00a0decrease in surface-cooling aerosols<\/a>\u00a0from shipping after regulation changes in 2020; an increase in heat-trapping water vapor from the\u00a02022 eruption<\/a>\u00a0of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai; and\u00a0peak activity in the current solar cycle<\/a>\u00a0sending more heat our way.<\/p>\n

But even combined these all don’t fully account for observed extra heat, Schmidt argues.<\/p>\n

The concern is we’re missing something critical in our understanding of Earth’s climate systems, that would explain\u00a0an accelerated rate of warming<\/a>, such as\u00a0a potential miscalibration<\/a>\u00a0in the start date of humanity’s impact on the climate.<\/p>\n

Being ahead of schedule would explain why extreme climate consequences, including deadly\u00a0floods<\/a>,\u00a0fires<\/a>, and\u00a0storms<\/a>, have been whacking us so hard and fast already.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2023 Was Even Hotter Than Predicted, Raising Fears We’re in Uncharted Territory Sea surface temperature anomalies for 9 April 2024.\u00a0(NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio) Last year Earth warmed around 0.2 \u00b0C more than climate models predicted. While that may not seem like much in isolation, when you consider it’s a measure across an entire planet it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[113,141,252,369,33857],"class_list":["post-67722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-carbon-emissions","tag-climate-change","tag-el-nino","tag-global-warming","tag-science-alert"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=67722"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67723,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67722\/revisions\/67723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}