The world could see another record-breaking warm year in 2024 as global temperatures are on a path to continue rising due to increase in emissions and the impact of the El Nino weather phenomenon that peaks in winter and pushes up global mean temperatures to their peak, Anadolu Agency reports citing leading scientists.
The 2023 UN Climate Change Summit ended this week in Dubai with a deal calling on countries to transition away from fossil fuels, but could without any agreement on a phase-out.
That was despite the world living through its hottest year on record, with increasing emissions from fossil fuels playing a critical role in rising global temperatures.
“This year has been extraordinary. We had the warmest July on record, which was also the warmest month. Every single month since then – August, September, October and November – have been record-breaking months for that time of year. This is just unprecedented,” Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service at European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, told Anadolu.
“We are completely in uncharted territory. The water of the oceans is at a record temperature, and we have not seen temperatures like these in our observational records that started in the 1940s, and in all likelihood, we have not seen anything like that in the last thousands of years. This is a new world and in this new world, we can expect different things from what we have seen before.”
According to Copernicus data, November 2023 was the warmest November globally on record and, with the warmest boreal summer and autumn, it confirmed 2023 as the warmest year on record.
Buontempo said the reason behind the record temperatures this year was a combination of the rise in global temperatures due to climate change and the El Nino impact.
“When we talk about climate change, we think it is something that will happen and, I think, 2023 demonstrated that climate change is happening now," he said, pointing to the heatwaves in oceans and the atmosphere, as well as intensifying drought conditions and more wildfires.
El Nino, which means “little boy” in Spanish, was first noticed by South American fishermen as unusually warm water periods in the Pacific Ocean in the 1600s.
Typically, El Nino impact peaks in winter, around December, and can affect weather significantly as the “warmer waters cause the Pacific jet stream to move south of its neutral position,” according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Areas in northern US and Canada are getting dryer and warmer than usual due to this shift, but the US Gulf Coast and Southeast regions see wetter conditions than usual with increased flooding.
