From https://www.yahoo.com/news/scientists-struggle-explain-record-surge-021843821.html
Title : Scientists struggle to explain record surge in global heat
By Nick Perry , December 16, 2024
The world has been getting hotter for decades but a sudden and extraordinary surge in heat has sent the climate deeper into uncharted territory -- and scientists are still trying to figure out why.
Over the past two years, temperature records have been repeatedly shattered by a streak so persistent and puzzling it has tested the best-available scientific predictions about how the climate functions ...an unprecedented streak between June 2023 and September 2024, global temperatures were unlike anything seen before, said the World Meteorological Organization -- and sometimes by a considerable margin.
The heat was so extreme it was enough to make 2023 -- and then 2024 -- the hottest years in history...
Scientists are looking for clues elsewhere.
One theory is that a global shift to cleaner shipping fuels in 2020 accelerated warming by reducing sulphur emissions that make clouds more mirror-like and reflective of sunlight.
In December, another peer-reviewed paper looked at whether a reduction in low-lying clouds had let more heat reach Earth's surface ...
Scientists this year warned that Earth's carbon sinks -- such as the forests and oceans that suck CO2 from the atmosphere -- had suffered an "unprecedented weakening" in 2023.
This month, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the Arctic tundra, after locking away C02 for millennia, was becoming a net source of emissions.
Oceans, which have acted as a massive carbon sink and climate regulator, were warming at a rate scientists "cannot fully explain", said Johan Rockstrom of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
"Could this be a first sign of a planet starting to show a loss of resilience? We cannot exclude it," he said last month.
Title : Scientists struggle to explain record surge in global heat
By Nick Perry , December 16, 2024
The world has been getting hotter for decades but a sudden and extraordinary surge in heat has sent the climate deeper into uncharted territory -- and scientists are still trying to figure out why.
Over the past two years, temperature records have been repeatedly shattered by a streak so persistent and puzzling it has tested the best-available scientific predictions about how the climate functions ...an unprecedented streak between June 2023 and September 2024, global temperatures were unlike anything seen before, said the World Meteorological Organization -- and sometimes by a considerable margin.
The heat was so extreme it was enough to make 2023 -- and then 2024 -- the hottest years in history...
Scientists are looking for clues elsewhere.
One theory is that a global shift to cleaner shipping fuels in 2020 accelerated warming by reducing sulphur emissions that make clouds more mirror-like and reflective of sunlight.
In December, another peer-reviewed paper looked at whether a reduction in low-lying clouds had let more heat reach Earth's surface ...
Scientists this year warned that Earth's carbon sinks -- such as the forests and oceans that suck CO2 from the atmosphere -- had suffered an "unprecedented weakening" in 2023.
This month, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the Arctic tundra, after locking away C02 for millennia, was becoming a net source of emissions.
Oceans, which have acted as a massive carbon sink and climate regulator, were warming at a rate scientists "cannot fully explain", said Johan Rockstrom of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
"Could this be a first sign of a planet starting to show a loss of resilience? We cannot exclude it," he said last month.