2023-09-15 17:15:54
The June, July and August quarter, which in the northern hemisphere corresponds mostly to summer, has been the warmest in the world since there have been systematic scientific records.
Specifically, this quarter of June, July and August has been the hottest for Earth since global temperature records were systematically established in 1880. This has been determined in an analysis carried out by scientists at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). , for its acronym in English) of NASA in New York, United States.
The months of June, July and August combined were 0.23 degrees Celsius warmer than any other period with this same sequence of months recorded by NASA, and 1.2 degrees Celsius warmer than the average summer between 1951 and 1980.
This new record comes as exceptional heat hits much of the world, exacerbating deadly wildfires in Canada and Hawaii and scorching heat waves in Europe, the United States and other parts of the world, while it is likely contributing to torrential rains in Italy, Greece and Central Europe.
NASA compiles its temperature record, known as GISTEMP, from air temperature data at the Earth’s surface acquired by tens of thousands of weather stations, as well as sea surface temperature data from instruments installed on ships. and buoys. These raw data are analyzed using methods that take into account the variable spacing between temperature stations spread across the planet and the effects of urban warming that could bias the calculations.
The analysis calculates temperature anomalies instead of absolute temperature. A temperature anomaly shows how far the temperature has moved from the average for the period 1951 to 1980.
This map represents global temperature anomalies for the Northern Hemisphere meteorological summer (June, July and August) of 2023. It shows how much warmer or colder different regions of Earth were compared to the reference average, which covers from 1951 to 1980. The color scale indicates the difference in degrees Celsius of plus or minus. (Image: NASA Earth Observatory / Lauren Dauphin)
“Exceptionally high sea surface temperatures, fueled in part by the return of El Niño, were largely responsible for the record summer heat,” said Josh Willis, a climate scientist and oceanographer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. NASA in Southern California.
El Niño is a natural climate phenomenon characterized by an above-normal increase in sea surface temperatures (and sea level) in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean.
The record-breaking summer of 2023 continues a long-term warming trend. Scientific observations and analyzes carried out over decades by NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and other international institutions have shown that this warming is mainly due to greenhouse gas emissions produced by human activities. At the same time, natural El Niño events in the Pacific add additional heat to the global atmosphere and often coincide with the warmest years on record.
“Against the backdrop of warming and marine heat waves that have been occurring gradually for decades, this El Niño has triggered us to set all kinds of records,” Willis said. “The heat waves we experience now are longer, hotter and harsher. The atmosphere can also hold more water these days, and when it’s hot and humid, it’s even harder for the human body to regulate its temperature.”
Willis and other scientists estimate that the greatest impacts of El Niño will be seen in February, March and April 2024. El Niño is associated with the weakening of the easterly trade winds and the movement of warm waters from the western Pacific toward the western coast from America. The phenomenon can have widespread effects, often bringing colder, wetter conditions to the southwestern US and drought to western Pacific countries such as Indonesia and Australia.
“Unfortunately, climate change is happening. What we said would happen, is happening,” says Gavin Schmidt, climate scientist and director of GISS. “And it will get worse if we continue to emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into our atmosphere.” (Source: NASA)
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