A fresh global temperature record was recorded this past month, causing climate researchers to ponder if this is a hangover from El Niño or an indication that the planet’s health is worse than anticipated. According to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, March’s worldwide surface temperatures surpassed the previous record, set in 2016, by 0.1C and were 1.68C above the average before industrialisation.
The warming phase, now spanning a decade of consecutive monthly records, has smashed all preceding records. Average global temperatures over the past year have been 1.58C more than pre-industrial times. This temporarily breaches the 1.5C benchmark established as a target in the Paris climate agreement, although a breach would only be recognised if this trend endures on a ten-year scale.
Earlier, the UK Met Office anticipated that the 1.5C target could be exceeded within a year. Other foremost climate observatories have report current heating levels to be within the limits projected by computer models. However, the rapid rise in temperatures over the last year has taken many scientists by surprise and ignited worries over a potential increase in warming.
The planet’s warming rate stands at 0.3C every ten years over the last fifteen years, nearly twice the pace of 0.18C per decade since the 1970s, says Diana Ürge-Vorsatz, Vice Chair of UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). She mused — might this be within the realm of climate diversity or a sign of speedier warming? She voiced her concerns over waiting to find out, since, in her view, it might be too late by then.
Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies’ director, Gavin Schmidt, noted that every month the temperature record is surpassed by up to 0.2C. He mentioned that 2023 has confounded scientists with its unpredictability more than any other year in a recent Nature article.
Schmidt included a number of plausible explanations for the anomaly in his list, such as the El Niño phenomenon, restrictions on cooling sulphur dioxide particles due to pollution regulations, consequences from the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano eruption in Tonga that occurred in January 2022, and an elevation in solar activity, preceding a predicted solar peak. Based on early evaluations, he suggested these elements could not justify the rise of 0.2C. He also stated that in case the anomaly doesn’t stabilise by August – which is a realistic prediction considering past El Niño events – earth could be stepping into unknown areas. This could, in turn, mean that the warming of our planet is already fundamentally changing how the climate system works, which happened much quicker than expected by scientists.
Fossil fuel emissions have long been acknowledged as the core problem in the scientific world. A review of approximately 90,000 climate-related researches showed a 99.9 per cent agreement that human activities such as burning gas, oil, coal, and trees are changing the climate. Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, affirmed that immediate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are necessary to prevent further warming.
To Michael E Mann, the scientist who first drew attention to the significant rise in global heat levels since the industrial revolution using his “hockey-stick graph” in 1999, the current patterns are as per the expectations due to the constantly rising emissions. However, he said this was no room for solace, since the warming is happening as fast as we suspected – and that in itself is unfortunate enough”, he posted on Twitter.
Contrarily, the resistance to this perspective does not come from science, but from the fossil fuel sector – particularly the 57 companies accounting for 80 per cent of emissions, risking trillions of dollars in potential losses. Chief Executive of Saudi Aramco, Amin Nasser, was cheered at an oil industry forum in Houston last month for proclaiming that “the idea of gradually eliminating oil and gas is ridiculous”. It’s notable that despite this, only four months ago his nation, along with others, had committed to moving away from fossil fuels at the Cop28 climate conference in Dubai. As reported by The Guardian.