About that graph on #ocean heat:
"The shocking visual is prompting many to ask whether this recent surge [in #ocean heat] is evidence that human-caused heating has propelled the #climate past a #TippingPoint.
Climate scientists say the answer is likely no. Instead, it is much more probable to be ... a coincidence of natural factors piled on top of the steady trend of human-caused global heating. "
Jeff Berardelli explains those factors:
1/N
This is worth repeating: nearly all the heat from #GlobalWarming goes into the oceans, so water temperatures have been rising steadily.
On top of that there is an #ElNiño developing. This is where the Pacific Ocean burps up heat.
But oceans and the #atmosphere are all connected, so what happens in the Pacific doesn't stay in the Pacific. Weather patterns, winds, pressure systems are affected all over the planet.
2/N
"At the same time, in the high latitudes of Canada and the far North Atlantic, a very blocked #JetStream pattern has persisted for weeks. These persistent weather patterns have a significant impact on the underlying sea surface temperatures."
This #OmegaBlock has a hand in the wildfires in Canada, warmed up the northeast Atlantic, and has resulted in "record-shattering heat" in the tropical Atlantic.
3/N
The next factor is about the Faustian bargain we have with #AirPollution: it kills. At the same time it shields the planet from the sun's heat - yes, we're already doing #GeoEngineering on a big scale.
Industralised nations are cleaning up their act, and the air. Sulfur emissions from global #shipping have plummeted, and with those also serious air pollution. Yay! But it does thin the heat shield.
This year, there is also less Sahara dust blowing around.
4/N
All in all, the message from this article is that our planet is a marvelous planet, we are just barely starting to understand its mechanisms for keeping us safe and the ecosystem in balance.
It does have a few quirks that make life exciting (sometimes maybe more exciting than you would like). We need to stop heating the planet to keep those events from being too exciting in a bad way.
Also, read Jeff Berardelli for yourself: he's explains stuff really well.
5/5
"What makes these most recent temperature spikes so alarming is that they’ve occurred before a forecast #ElNiño event in the Pacific, rather than during one."
"Since 1971, about 89 % of the excess heat in Earth’s climate system has been stored in the ocean (with 6 % on land, 1 % in the atmosphere, and about 4 % going towards melting ice on land and sea)."
When the #oceans give up a little heat the #atmosphere heats up a lot.
https://theconversation.com/global-average-sea-and-air-temperatures-are-spiking-in-2023-before-el-nino-has-fully-arrived-we-should-be-very-concerned-207731
Over the past three years, Earth’s climate system has accumulated an average of 11 Hiroshima bombs’ worth of excess energy per second. And it’s showing in the current surge in ocean temperature.
"What’s happened in recent weeks to turn the drip-drip-drip of #climate warming into a full-on torrent? Below is a look at several of the most prominent global and regional records and some of the factors that may be leading to the recent spikes. "
A rogue's gallery of culprits
https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2023/07/the-world-just-broke-a-stunning-slew-of-heat-records-why-right-now/
#ElNino #jetstream #ClimateChange
"Global surface temperatures have dramatically spiked since the start of June, with the past four months (June-September) breaking prior monthly records by a large margin.
Next-generation reanalysis products use data from satellites, weather balloons, airplanes, surface stations, buoys, and ships to feed into state of the art weather models that calculate [daily] global #temperatures back in time" to 1958."
#ElNiño #ClimateChange
https://www.theclimatebrink.com/p/visualizing-a-summer-of-extremes
The #ExtremeWeather this year has been very alarming. AND it is in line with what #climate scientists have been saying, indeed the #ClimateScience has been remarkably accurate.
Climate science gives the view from 30,000 feet: it has, so far, less to say about this particular wildfire here or that flood there.
Also:
“There is a misconception that these extreme weather events constitute some sort of ‘tipping point’ that we’ve crossed. They don’t." - Michael E. Mann
Beware of people claiming that IPCC scientist are somehow "sugarcoating" the climate crisis.
If you tend to question the IPCC, ask yourself honestly where you got that notion from. I mean, it's awfully convenient for the #FossilFuel industry if people don't trust climate scientists, amirite.
You can't get all those climate scientists to agree to sugarcoat things, just as you can't get all those scientists to "conspire" on a "hoax" about the climate science.
Get it from the horses' mouths, in detail:
"The Guardian asked 45 leading climate scientists from around the world.
The scientists told us that, despite it certainly feeling as if events had taken a frightening turn, the global heating seen to date was entirely in line with three decades of scientific predictions. Being proved right was cold comfort, they said, as their warnings had so far been largely in vain."
More #ExtremeWeather in store this fall and winter:
"El Niño is developing alongside an unprecedented surge in global temperatures that scientists say has increased the likelihood of brutal heat waves and deadly floods of the kind seen in recent weeks."
Remember:
Climate is climate
Weather is weather.
They have different times scales and different geographic scales, so don't expect climate science to predict the local weather.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/09/26/super-el-nino-forecast-winter/
"This year is "virtually certain" to be the warmest in 125,000 years, European Union scientists said on Wednesday, after data showed last month was the world's hottest October in that period.
Last month smashed through the previous October temperature record, from 2019, by a massive margin [0.4C], the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said."
“Records will continue to fall next year, especially as the growing #ElNiño begins to take hold, exposing billions to unusual #heat,” said Andrew Pershing, vice president for science at Climate Central. “While #climate impacts are most acute in developing countries near the equator, seeing climate-fueled streaks of #ExtremeHeat in the US, India, Japan and Europe underscores that no one is safe from #ClimateChange.”
Volcanic aerosols have a cooling effect. But "Hunga Tonga’s eruption presented a unique scenario: As a submarine volcano, it introduced an unprecedented amount of water vapor into the stratosphere, increasing total stratospheric water content by about 10%."
But water vapour is a wildcard; it's looking like the eruption gave global cooling not heating. So the exceptional heat in the past two years is even harder to account for.
Widely thought to be responsible for Earth's extreme warmth during the past two years, researchers say the Hunga Tonga eruption actually cooled the climate. Research by Texas A&M University explores the 2022 Hunga Tonga volcano eruption's climate effects, discovering that it caused cooling
'Looking back at the most extreme months of heat in the second half of 2023 and early 2024 when the previous records were beaten at times by more than 0.2C, an enormous anomaly, he said scientists were still baffled: “We don’t have a quantitative explanation for even half of it. That is pretty humbling.”"
Surge in #OceanHeat is a sign #ClimateChange is accelerating
"The rate of warming in the oceans has more than quadrupled since 1985, suggesting global warming in general has undergone a marked acceleration."
"Ocean temperatures are now rising at a rate of 0.27C per decade, compared to 0.06C 40 years ago. That acceleration is fueled by an increase in the Earth’s energy balance, which has roughly doubled since 2010 as greenhouse gas concentrations have increased and disappearing ice has meant less sunlight is reflected back into space, the study concluded."
"The world's cloud cover has been shrinking significantly and may help explain the extraordinary heat of the last two years, new research led by NASA found."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-19/shrinking-cloud-cover-driving-temperature-records/105428180
"Life on Earth depends on a balance between heat coming in from the Sun and heat leaving. This balance is tipping to one side.
Our recent research found this imbalance has more than doubled over the last 20 years.
We don’t yet have a full explanation. But new research suggests changes in clouds is a big factor."
As the song says, "we really don't know clouds, at all".
"Worldwide, cloud patterns are now changing in concerning ways. Scientists have found the expanse of Earth’s highly reflective clouds is steadily shrinking. With less heat reflected, the Earth is now trapping more heat than expected.
To be clear, clouds aren’t going to disappear. They may increase in some areas. But the belts of shiny white clouds we need most are declining between 1.5 and 3% per decade."
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