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Why Were 2023 and 2024 So Hot?

Union of Concerned Scientists

The year 2023 was by far the warmest in Earths recorded history, and perhaps in the past 100,000 years , shattering the previous record set in 2016 by 0.27C (0.49F). Its a great question, but the warming effect from heat-trapping gases far outweighs the cooling effect from industrial aerosols. But why were 2023 and 2024 so warm?

2024 286
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2022 updates to the temperature records

Real Climate

El Niño events enhance global warming (as in 1998, 2010, 2016 etc.) impart a slight cooling. Consequently, a line drawn from an El Niño year to a subsequent La Niña year will almost always show a cooling – a fact well known to the climate disinformers (though they are not so quick to show the uncertainties in such cherry picks!).

2022 344
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Not just another dot on the graph?

Real Climate

Of course, the records being set in the UAH TLT record blows the ‘climate has been cooling since 2016’ trope that they used through to about last summer, leaving them no plausible data refuge. Efforts to update and improve the freshwater estimates will be undertaken this spring (register for the workshop here! ).

Ocean 351
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Should the official Atlantic hurricane season be lengthened?

Real Climate

2016 ), a reduction of Saharan dust concentration since the 1970s ( Evan et al. 2016 ), could increase again in concentration. 2016 ), in addition to a long-term decline ( Caesar et al. 242-246, 2016. and European Clean Air Acts and Amendments of the 1970s ( Mann and Emanuel 2006 ; Dunstone et al. 2013 ; Sobel et al.

2020 255
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The AMOC: tipping this century, or not?

Real Climate

If the AMOC weakens, this region will cool. And in fact it is cooling – it’s the only region on Earth which has cooled since preindustrial times. That’s easy to check: if that were the case, then cooling in the area would be linked to increased heat loss at the surface. From Rahmstorf and Ganopolski 1999.

Ocean 246
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The CO2 problem in six easy steps (2022 Update)

Real Climate

The IPCC AR6 report used the most up-to-date estimates from Etminan et al (2016) which are similar but slightly more complicated than the simplified, oft-used formula for CO 2 : RF = 5.35 W/m 2 , and the net forcing (including cooling impacts of aerosols and natural changes) is 2.7±0.8 ln(CO 2 /CO 2 _orig) (seen in Table 6.2

Radiation 352
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AR6 of the best

Real Climate

The observed reduction in surface warming trend over the period 1998 to 2012 as compared to the period 1951 to 2012, is due in roughly equal measure to a reduced trend in radiative forcing and a cooling contribution from natural internal variability, which includes a possible redistribution of heat within the ocean ( medium confidence ).

Sea Level 361