High temperatures persist

The image below, created with NASA data while using a 1903-1924 custom base, illustrates that the temperature anomaly through July 2024 has been above 1.5°C for the past 13 months. The red line shows the trend (one-year Lowess Smoothing) associated with the rapid recent rise.

On August 8, 2024, the daily global air temperature anomaly was +0.75°C vs. 1991-2020 and the anomaly has been at about the same level for over the past 13 months, as illustrated by the image below, adapted from Copernicus.

The current temperature is higher than the temperature at this time of year in 2023, which is remarkable given that we were in an El Niño back in August 2023, while a transition to La Niña around August-October 2024 is expected, as illustrated by the image below, adapted from NOAA.

The image below, adapted from NOAA, further illustrates that we’re in ENSO neutral territory and may transition into the next El Niño within a few years.

The danger is that we could transition into a new El Niño within a few years, while temperatures remain high due to feedbacks and while sunspots reach the peak of this cycle, which – in combination with further events and variables – could constitute a cataclysmic alignment that could result in runaway temperature rise by 2026, as an earlier post concluded and as illustrated by the image below.

In a cataclysmic alignment, the next El Niño threatens to develop while sunspots are higher than expected and peak in July 2025.

As emissions keep rising, feedbacks threaten to grow in strength and strike with ever greater ferocity, further accelerating the temperature rise while extreme weather disasters hit the world more frequently over larger areas, with greater intensity and for longer periods.

Heatwaves, fires, famine, drought, floods, crop loss, loss of habitable land and corrupt politicians threaten violent conflicts to erupt around the world, industrial activity to grind to a halt and the temperature to rise above 3°C from pre-industrial, driving humans into extinction by 2026.

IPCC keeps downplaying the danger

Note that neither the 1903-1924 base, nor the 1991-2020 base, nor the 1901-200 base in above images is pre-industrial. The IPCC keeps downplaying the danger, e.g. by claiming that we’re still well below the 1.5°C threshold, but when using a genuinely pre-industrial base, the temperature anomaly has for the past thirteen months also been above the 2°C threshold that politicians at the 2015 Paris Agreement pledged wouldn’t be crossed.

[ from earlier post ]

The above image, from an earlier post, shows that the February 2024 temperature was 1.76°C above 1885-1915, potentially 2.75°C above pre-industrial (bright yellow inset right). The red line (a 6 months Lowess smoothing trend) highlights the steep rise that had already taken place by then.

[ image from a 2014 post ]

Additionally, the IPCC refers to a “carbon budget” as if there was an amount of carbon to be divided among polluters and to be consumed for decades to come.

The image on the right illustrates the fallacy of offsets, net-zero and a “balance” between sources and sinks.

Instead, effective and comprehensive action is needed on multiple lines of action, simultaneously yet separately.

Indeed, action is needed to reduce concentrations of carbon both in oceans and in the atmosphere, while on land, the soil carbon content needs to increase, which can be achieved by methods such as pyrolysis of biowaste and adding the resulting biochar to the soil, which will reduce emissions, reduce fire hazards, sequester carbon, support the presence of moisture & nutrients in the soil and thus support the health & growth of vegetation, as discussed at the Climate Plan group and the biochar group.

The IPCC has not only failed to warn about the size of the temperature rise from pre-industrial, the IPCC has also failed to warn about developments contributing to such a rise and failed to point at the best ways to combat the rise.

Higher temperatures come with feedbacks, as illustrated by the image below, from an earlier post.

As illustrated by the image below, adapted from Climate Reanalyzer, the July 2024 temperature anomaly was huge over and around much of Antarctica.

As illustrated by the image below, also adapted from Climate Reanalyzer, Antarctic temperatures were still increasing in early August, 2024.

The IPCC failed to warn about Antarctic snow and ice cover decline, and – importantly – the amplifying impact of Antarctic sea ice decline on the global temperature rise. This was addressed in an earlier post as follows:
Sea ice loss results in less sunlight getting reflected back into space and instead getting absorbed by the ocean and the impact of Antarctic sea ice loss is even stronger than Arctic sea ice loss, as Antarctic sea ice is located closer to the Equator, as pointed out by Paul Beckwith in a video in an earlier post. A warmer Southern Ocean also comes with fewer bright clouds, further reducing albedo, as discussed here and here. For decades, there still were many lower clouds over the Southern Ocean, reflecting much sunlight back into space, but these lower clouds have been decreasing over time, further speeding up the amount of sunlight getting absorbed by the water of the Southern Ocean, and this ‘pattern effect‘ could make a huge difference globally, as this study points out. Emissivity is a further factor; open oceans are less efficient than sea ice when it comes to emitting in the far-infrared region of the spectrum (feedback #23 on the feedbacks page).

Sea surface temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere

After an astonishing rise in 2023, sea surface temperature anomalies fell for six months in the Northern Hemisphere and then rose again for four months, threatening to cause dramatic sea ice loss over the next few months and destabilize sediments at the seafloor, resulting in huge amounts of methane erupting and abruptly entering the atmosphere.

[ click on images to enlarge ]

Deformed Jet Stream pushing more heat toward Arctic Ocean

As the Jet Stream gets more deformed due to polar amplification of the temperature rise, this can at times result in strong winds speeding up ocean currents that carry heat toward the Arctic Ocean. Much heat enters the Arctic Ocean along the path of the Gulf Stream. A sea surface temperature of 35.9°C (96.5°F) was recorded by station 256 in the Gulf of Mexico on August 11, 2024, as illustrated by the image below, created with cdip.ucsd.edu content.

[ click on images to enlarge ]

The image on the right shows the Northern Hemisphere sea surface temperature anomaly in July 2024, created with a Climate Reanalyzer image.

The image below shows a deformed Jet Stream (at 250 hPa) with many circular wind patterns. Winds merge off the North American coast, reaching speeds as high as 374 km/h (232 mph, at green circle). Such strong winds can strongly cool the sea surface due to evaporation, while forming a freshwater lid at the surface of the North Atlantic that enables more warm subsurface water to flow toward the Arctic Ocean. The image shows part of the Jet Stream moving all the way across the Arctic Ocean, speeding up ocean currents that melt the sea ice and cause further heating up of the water of the Arctic Ocean.

Arctic sea ice

The image below, adapted from the Danish Metereological Institute, shows that Arctic sea ice volume on August 16, 2024, was at a record low for the time of year, as it has been for most of the year.

Arctic sea ice has become very thin over the years. The combination image below shows a forecast for Arctic sea ice thickness on August 16, run the day before, for the years 2014, 2023 and 2024.

The screenshot below, from an earlier post, further illustrates the danger.

High methane levels over Arctic

Meanwhile, peak methane levels as high as 2414 parts per billion (ppb) were recorded by the NOAA 21 satellite at 399 mb on August 13, 2024 AM, with a global mean of 1938 ppb.

By comparison, the NOAA 20 satellite recorded peak levels as high as 2336 ppb at 487 mb on August 13, 2024 AM, with a global mean of 1943 ppb.

As illustrated by the image below, high methane levels were recently recorded at the observatory in Barrow, Alaska.

Climate Emergency Declaration

The situation is dire and the precautionary principle calls for rapid, comprehensive and effective action to reduce the damage and to improve the situation, as described in this 2022 post, where needed in combination with a Climate Emergency Declaration, as discussed at this group.

Links

• NASA – datasets and images
https://data.giss.nasa.gov

• Copernicus – Climate Pulse
https://pulse.climate.copernicus.eu

• Climate Reanalyzer
https://climatereanalyzer.org

• NOAA – Climate Prediction Center – ENSO: Recent Evolution, Current Status and Predictions
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf

• NOAA – Monthly Temperature Anomalies Versus El Niño

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/monthly-report/global/202407/supplemental/page-4

• Cataclysmic Alignment

https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2022/06/cataclysmic-alignment.html

• Sunspots
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/sunspots.html

• Pre-industrial
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/pre-industrial.html

• Feedbacks
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/feedbacks.html