A dry lake in La Sabana Metropolitan Park in San José, affected by droughts caused by the El Niño phenomenon. (File photo)
Climatologists say most of this record heat is due to human-caused climate change and carbon dioxide and methane emissions from the combustion of coal, oil and natural gas.
The extra heat comes from a natural phenomenon, El Niño, a warming of the central Pacific that is changing global weather patterns.
Given the intensity of El Niño since mid-2023, it is not surprising that global temperatures are above normal as El Niño draws heat from the Earth. x27;ocean towards the atmosphere, which increases air temperatures. But the scale of the records broken is alarming, said Jennifer Francis, a climatologist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center, who was not involved in the calculations.
We also note the existence of a "hot spot" over the Arctic, where warming is much faster than across the globe, leading to a cascade of effects on fisheries, ecosystems, melting ice and changes in ocean currents, which have long-lasting and far-reaching consequences.
A quote from Jennifer Francis, climatologist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center
According to Francesca Guglielmo, senior climatologist at Copernicus, record ocean temperatures outside the Pacific, where El Niño is concentrated, show that it is not just a natural effect .
Sea surface temperature in the North Atlantic reached a record high [relative to a specific date] every day for an entire year since March 5, 2023, often by seemingly impossible margins, according to Brian McNoldy, a tropical scientist at the University of Miami.
These other ocean areas are a symptom of heat trapped by greenhouse gases that has been accumulating for decades, Francis said in an email . This heat is now emerging and pushing air temperatures into uncharted territories.
These abnormally high temperatures are very worrying. To avoid even higher temperatures, we must act quickly to reduce CO2 emissions.
A quote from Natalie Mahowald, climatologist at Cornell University
This winter – December, January and February – was the warmest by almost a quarter of a degree, beating 2016, which was also an El Niño year. The three-month period was the hottest ever recorded in a season compared to pre-industrial levels in Copernicus records, which date back to 1940.
Ms Francis said that on a scale of 1 to 10 to assess the seriousness of the situation, she gives what is happening now a 10, but soon we will need a new scale, because What is a 10 today will be a 5 in the future, unless society can stop the buildup of heat-trapping gases.