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June 2023 may be remembered as the beginning of major changes in the climate system. A number of key global indicators flashed red warning lights in a sign that some systems were headed for a new state that may not be recoverable.
Earth’s significant reflective polar ice caps are at their lowest extent on record for the satellite age, sea ice around Antarctica It’s a record low so far, prompting concerned scientists to repeatedly share dramatic pictures of the missing ice. In the Arctic, the Greenland ice sheet ended the month with the following events: Largest June melting event ever recordedand scientists report that June 2023 will be the hottest June ever measured, beating the 2019 record by a “staggering” 0.16 degrees Celsius.
Oceans around the world have set records for warmth on the surface and to depths of more than 6,000 feet throughout the Moon, with temperatures well above normal, and the situation has added to the charts showing the anomaly. They have been shared thousands of times by scientists, policy makers and the general public. And in Canada, a forest area the size of Kentucky was burned. smothering vast areas of central North America with sharp wildfire smokeSome of the fog has even reached Europe.
Independent climate statistician said the month was the hottest on record on nearly every continent Maximilian Herrera. In addition to the deadly heat of late June, Mexico and the south central USExtreme readings are widespread in remote Siberia, with hundreds of daily heat records including readings above 95 degrees Fahrenheit near the Arctic Circle. “The heat will make it worse.” Posted on Twitter.
Herrera also tracks notable local extreme events, like historical records. Mountain heat wave in Iran, at an elevation of 1,500 to 5,000 feet above sea level, which is usually much lower, temperatures soared to 100 to 120 degrees Fahrenheit in late June. What is the temperature in Iraq in the first week of July? Forecast to break through 120 degrees Fahrenheit.
BREAKING: June 2023 blew all previous June records and set a staggering 0.16 degrees above the previous record set in 2019.
This was about 1.46°C higher than typical temperatures in June before the industrial revolution (1850-1899). pic.twitter.com/7D5yR11n0z
— Sieg Housefather (@hausfath) July 3, 2023
“Such unusual extremes could be early warnings of tipping points for different weather, sea ice and fire conditions,” said Tim Renton, a climate researcher at the University of Exeter. “We call ‘flicker’ when a complex system begins sampling its regime for a short period of time before it transitions to a new regime. Let’s hope I’m wrong about that.”
Meanwhile, the tropical Pacific is transitioning to a warmer El Niño phase of the 2- to 7-year Pacific cycle, which could increase the global mean temperature by 0.2 degrees Celsius, pushing global heat into dangerous new waters. Enough to raise it to the highest value. .
“An El Niño outbreak would break temperature records in many regions and oceans around the world, greatly increasing the likelihood of further heatwaves,” he said. World Meteorological Organization secretary general Peteri Taras. “Early warnings and predictive actions for extreme weather associated with this critical climate event are critical to protecting lives and livelihoods.”
“From this year onwards, we expect a gradual increase in global average temperatures,” said world-renowned atmospheric scientist Kevin Trenberth. National Atmospheric Research Center Professor Emeritus, University of Auckland. “And next year will be the warmest year on record, 1.4 or 1.5 degrees warmer than pre-industrial.”
The higher of these levels will be the UN 2015 threshold. Paris Agreement It aims to limit climate change, but the continuing trend of rising global temperatures may make that goal unattainable.
“After that, we expect it to swing around that value and not fall again,” he said.
He said El Niño’s rise in temperature was driven by record levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, adding that the rate of increase was unprecedented and continues to accelerate.
“In other words, there will be no reduction in the carbon footprint record that would have happened if the United States and other countries had taken new measures,” he said. “The problem is that China and India are accelerating coal-fired power plant construction, overwhelming all other cuts.”
Antarctic sea ice loss has cascading effects
Antarctic’s alarming and sustained decline in sea ice may be one of the most puzzling and alarming of the recent series of extreme weather events. Until recently, researchers expected Antarctica to change too little abruptly. Antarctica is a vast cold reservoir, surrounded by continuous ocean currents and wind eddies that have buffered the continent to some extent.
But at the end of June, in the middle of the Southern Hemisphere winter, about one million square miles of ice, an area the size of Texas and Alaska, disappeared. As winter began in the southern hemisphere, sea ice growth slowed more than previously observed during the satellite age.
The negative Antarctic sea ice anomaly has been widening for weeks and has now reached a historic level.
Remember, the ice is growing much slower than usual, setting a new seasonal record in February this year.
seasonal cycle graph pic.twitter.com/OfcOGrsH1b
— Zach Lab (@ZLabe) July 1, 2023
In some cases, the anomaly is just a one-time snapshot of the region, but Antarctic sea ice extent has been well below average since at least January. Earth Science Observation Center At the University of Colorado Boulder, the situation was called extreme conditions. “Frankly, we’re still working to figure it out,” he said.
But almost all new studies point to man-made warming, as measurements of winds and ocean currents show how global warming has changed. Pushed the Antarctic wind belt toward the poleThis caused relatively warm water to move closer to the ice edge of the frozen continent.
other recent research The Southern Ocean, which surrounds Antarctica and extends north to 60 degrees south latitude, was disproportionately responsible for the heat absorbed by the world’s oceans between 2005 and 2017 after being trapped in the atmosphere by greenhouse gases. Studies have shown that it was accumulating proportions. Despite occupying only 6.25 percent of the world’s ocean surface area, they account for 45-62 percent of the heat absorbed by the world’s oceans.
Without the reflective sea ice cover, darker seas could absorb even more heat, leading to earlier and more widespread melting in the next Australian summer. And as the ice margin around Antarctica shrinks, warmer waters will flow more easily toward the floating ice shelves that support vast areas of inland ice, allowing the ocean to move faster to accelerate sea-level rise. may begin to flow into
There are also impacts on ecosystems. The abundance of certain types of plankton and krill at the base of the marine food chain is associated with Antarctic sea ice. The feeding and breeding cycles of many other species, including seals and seabirds, are closely linked to sea ice, so any disruption to these organisms has ripple effects throughout the ecosystem.
Heat domes take root in North America
climatologist Michael MannThe director of the Center for Science, Sustainability and Media at the University of Pennsylvania said there are likely vestiges of global warming in the deadly dome of stagnant hot air. Grilled in Mexico, Southwestern and Central United States, and much of Canada.
“It’s likely another resonance phenomenon that’s also affecting the extreme weather we’re seeing[such as the heat domes in the south-central United States and wildfires in Canada],” he said. research This shows how climate warming is affecting the wave patterns in the planet’s atmosphere, which “could lead to persistent summer extremes.” In this case, it could be behind many of the extreme conditions we are currently seeing in North America and Eurasia. ”
This wildfire season in Canada is unlike anything we’ve seen before. And that’s part of the trend toward larger fires and more damaging fire seasons.
4.7 million hectares were burned. Annual average to date he is 310,000.
CO2 emissions from roof fires
(1/5) pic.twitter.com/amTy55c4Sy
— Capital Weather Gang (@capitalweather) June 12, 2023
Another part of the heat dome was deposited over Canada, where wildfires released 160 million tons of carbon by the end of June. Canada has the highest total estimated annual emissions Scientists at the EU’s Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service have reported since satellite monitoring began in 2003. New research also suggests a link between disappearing ice and snow in the Earth’s polar regions and extreme climates in the mid-latitudes where most people live.
“There is a growing body of evidence linking the rapidly warming Arctic to extreme summer weather,” says climatologist Jennifer Francis He posted on Twitter on June 30th, sharing a link to a new peer-reviewed study published in Nature Communications, which said that changes in the North Pole triggered waves of jet streams that pushed the thermal dome into place. It confirmed the hypothesis that there is a possibility of confinement.
In recent years, such patterns can continue for months with short pauses in between. That includes last summer, when heat domes over Europe lasted for months. sparked the continent’s hottest summer on record.
Earth’s energy imbalance disrupts climate system
At the top of the Earth, scientists are watching the unusual ocean heatwaves in the North Atlantic with similar vigilance. Because it could be a sign of turmoil on Earth. Atlantic Meridian Reversal Circulation, are important parts of the global climate system that transport cold and warm waters between the poles. Sea surface temperatures about 9 degrees Fahrenheit above the region’s average could also trigger heatwaves in adjacent land areas.
Global sea surface temperature anomalies continue to break new records rapidly.
We must seriously consider the possibility that this warming spike could be even worse than the 1997 and 2015 Super El Niños.
It will soon turn into a record heat wave. pic.twitter.com/U4gE18GXCn
— Leon Simmons (@LeonSimons8) June 25, 2023
It’s no surprise that regions around the world are recording record sea temperatures, says Trenberth, who specializes in analyzing deep-sea heat content to more than 6,000 feet below the surface, and that 90 percent of the deep-sea heat content is The above is said to be trapped in the atmosphere by carbon pollution. has been absorbed.
That heat, measured as energy, not as a temperature value, is equivalent to the energy of five nuclear bombs exploding in the ocean every second at this point, roughly 100 times the energy produced worldwide in 2021. To do.
For Trenberth, the global energy imbalance, which has steadily accumulated since the dawn of the fossil-fuel industrial age, is the best measure of human impact on climate. , the energy balance is not affected by seasonal or annual fluctuations or shifts. in local climate patterns.
And if the heat build-up that drives the ocean’s energy imbalance stops, many of its effects would diminish rapidly, even at warmer waters.
“It’s not the earth’s temperature that matters, but the earth’s energy imbalance. If you have a pot of water on the stove, it creates convection during heating,” he said. “It eventually evaporates the water as steam. But as soon as you turn off the heat source, all that work stops. The temperature is the same, but there is no more heating.”