Hottest January on record mystifies climate scientists | Climate crisis | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/feb/06/hottest-january-on-record-climate-scientists-global-temperatures-high

January marked the 18th month of the past 19 to record global-average surface temperatures above the 1.5C preindustrial level.

Climate scientists had expected this exceptional spell to subside after a warming El Niño event peaked in January 2024 and conditions shifted to an opposing, cooling La Niña phase.

But the heat has lingered at record or near-record levels, prompting debate about what other factors could be driving it to the top end of expectations.

Julien Nicolas, a climate scientist at Copernicus, told Agence France-Presse: “This is what makes it a bit of a surprise: you’re not seeing this cooling effect, or temporary brake at least, on the global temperature that we were expecting to see.”


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 the Earth’s surface. “It’s really still a matter of debate,” Nicolas said.

ROGER_WILCO:

Climate change target of 2C is ‘dead’, says renowned climate scientist | Climate crisis | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/feb/04/climate-change-target-of-2c-is-dead-says-renowned-climate-scientist

“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) defined a scenario which gives a 50% chance to keep warming under 2C – that scenario is now impossible,” he said. “The 2C target is dead, because the global energy use is rising, and it will continue to rise.” The new analysis said global heating is likely to reach 2C by 2045, unless solar geoengineering is deployed.

...

A key focus has been on emissions from shipping. For decades, the sulphate particles produced by ships burning fuel have blocked some sunlight from reaching the Earth’s surface, suppressing temperatures. But in 2020, new anti-pollution regulations came into force, sharply cutting the level of the aerosol particles. This led to more heat from the sun reaching the surface, which scientists measure as watts a square meter (W/m2).

Hansen’s team’s estimate of the impact of this – 0.5W/m2 – is significantly higher than five other recent studies, which ranged from 0.07 to 0.15 W/m2, but would explain the anomalous heat. Hansen’s team used a top-down approach, looking at the change in the reflectivity over key parts of the ocean and ascribing that to the reductions in shipping emissions. The other studies used bottom-up approaches to estimate the increase in heat.

“Both approaches are useful and often complementary,” said Dr Gavin Schmidt, director of Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. “But I think in this case, Hansen’s approach is too simple and doesn’t factor in changes in Chinese emissions, or internal variability.”

The new study also argues that the planet’s climate sensitivity to rising carbon emissions has been underestimated, partly because of the underestimation of the impact of reduced shipping emissions.

Jan Umsonst https://www.facebook.com/taoist.attack/posts/3422485977881946
·
A look on the Southern Ocean marine heatwaves - doesn't look good, as they are also intensifying...
Our main problem: ocean heat uptake remained even during the El Nino 2023/24 on record levels - insane the numbers of the last years!
Important for this post: During La Ninas the oceans take up much more heat than during El Ninos.
The central to eastern tropical Pacific being colder than normal during La NInas supports ocean heat uptake over the abnormal cold areas. During El Ninos the opposite happens as the oceans loose vast amounts of heat to the atmosphere during El Ninos when the central to eastern tropical Pacific is warmer than normal.
The high rates of ocean heat uptake during the triple La Nina from 2020 to 2022 are thought to be one reason behind the exceptional ocean surface warming during 2023/24. Some of the take up heat resurfaced into the upper mixed layer during 2023/24 which caused this exceptional surface warming signal. The El Nino in 2023/24 played here a large role.
Still the signal of heat resurfacing had been exceptional.
But now we have the problem that ocean heat uptake did not decline or reversed during 2023/24 when we had the last El Nino emitting vast amounts of energy into the atmosphere.
The rates of ocean heat uptake had been similar in 2023/24 to 2020-22, which should not be possible, at least not back on back...
Lets talk about numbers...
The numbers of ocean heat uptake (IAP/CAS dataset) in 2021 of 15Zj, 2022 of 19Zj, 2023 of 16Zj and 2024 of 16ZJ (1) have to be seen in relation to these numbers:
Regardless of which estimate is used, there has been a two- to three- fold increase in the rate of increase in OHC since the late 1980s. For example, according to the IAP analy- sis, the OHC trend for 1958–1985 is 3.1 ± 0.5 ZJ yr−1, and since 1986, the OHC trend is 9.2 ± 0.5 ZJ yr−1 (Fig. 2). The IAP trend within 1958–1985 of 3.1 ± 0.5 ZJ yr−1 is higher than the previous release in Cheng et al. (2023) (2.3 ± 0.5 ZJ yr−1), mainly because the new inclusion of the bottle data bias correction. After 2007, with better global coverage of ocean subsurface data, OHC uncertainty is reduced. There is a significant warming trend of 10.8 ± 1.2 ZJ yr−1 and 10.3 ± 0.8 ZJ yr−1 from 2007–2023 for IAP/CAS and NCEI/NOAA (seasonal time series), respectively (Fig. 2). The NCEI three-month OHC estimate has a slightly stronger trend than the pentadal time series from 2005 to 2020, indicating the impact of sam- pling changes associated with the mapping approach. (2)
(1) New Record Ocean Temperatures and Related Climate Indicators in 2023"; https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00376-024-3378-5
(2) "Record High Temperatures in the Ocean in 2024"; https://link.springer.com/.../10.1007/s00376-025-4541-3...
These studies are important for what happens in the oceans (read them in the order):
(1) "New Record Ocean Temperatures and Related Climate Indichttps://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00376-024-3378-5
(2) "A Glimpse into the Future: The 2023 Ocean Temperature and Sea Ice Extremes in the Context of Longer-Term Climate Change "; https://journals.ametsoc.org/.../105/3/BAMS-D-23-0209.1.xml
(3) "Record High Temperatures in the Ocean in 2024"; https://link.springer.com/.../10.1007/s00376-025-4541-3...
(4) "Quantifying the acceleration of multidecadal global sea surface warming driven by Earth's energy imbalance"; https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/adaa8a
"Drivers of the 2023 record shattering marine heat extreme in the North Atlantic"; https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-5046018/v1

Catastrophic tipping point in Greenland reached as crystal blue lakes turn brown, belch out carbon dioxide | Live Science
https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/climate-change/catastrophic-tipping-point-in-greenland-reached-as-crystal-blue-lakes-turn-brown-belch-out-carbon-dioxide

Record heat and rain turned thousands of Greenland lakes brown in 2022 as they hit a tipping point and began emitting carbon dioxide.
...
Less sunlight was able to penetrate the lakes as they darkened, which had a ripple effect on the microscopic plankton living in the water. The number of plankton absorbing CO₂ through photosynthesis — the process of turning sunlight into energy — declined, while the amount of plankton breaking down and releasing carbon increased, according to a statement released by the University of Maine.

The lakes normally absorb CO₂ in the summer, but by the following year they had flipped to become carbon dioxide producers. These types of widespread changes would normally take centuries. Researchers have observed the browning of lakes across the Northern Hemisphere, including the U.S., but it typically takes multiple decades — much longer than the transformation of Greenland's lakes.

As a Climate Scientist, I Knew It Was Time to Leave Los Angeles
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/10/opinion/la-fires-los-angeles-wildfires.html


Climate Scientist Peter Kalmus Fled L.A. Fearing Wildfires. His Old Neighborhood Is Now a Hellscape
https://youtu.be/mMYvuY_MLMQ?si=0HnVb1GwLOr5hY2f


Multiple neighborhoods have been completely burned down, including in the town of Altadena, where our guest, climate scientist and activist Peter Kalmus, lived until two years ago, when increasing heat and dryness pushed Kalmus to leave the Los Angeles area in fear of his safety. "I couldn't stay there," he says. "It's not a new normal. … It's a staircase to a hotter, more hellish Earth." Kalmus discusses an op-ed he recently published in The New York Times about the decision, which he says was toned down by the paper's editors when he attempted to explain that fossil fuel companies' investment in climate change denial and normalization has only accelerated the pace of unprecedented large-scale climate disasters. "This is going to get worse," he warns, "Everything has changed."

Pískové baterie mají potenciál ekologického a velmi efektivního způsobu skladování energie | Technický týdeník
https://www.technickytydenik.cz/rubriky/poutaky/piskove-baterie-maji-potencial-ekologickeho-a-velmi-efektivniho-zpusobu-skladovani-energie_57085.html
trochu jsem o tom přemýšlel, protože stavět domečky pro teplou vodu je sice low-tech, ale přeci jen nákladné. Mám ale pár poznámek k tomu nahřívání písku na vysokou teplotu, trubky přímo skrz horký písek, apod.:

Trubky rezavěj, bude to špatně servisovatelné, před rozebráním písku bude muset vychladnout, což s nefunkčníma trubkama potrvá hodně dlouho, vysoké teploty můžou v případě nějaké havárie systému i vybuchnout (zejména dnes, když je všechno řízené softwarově, vidím jako riziko vyhackování těhle mikroenergetických systémů...).

Písek ovšem má menší objemovou tepelnou kapacitu, než voda - používá se proto, že nabízí větší teplotní gradient, ale vyplatí se to až od gradientu cca 4x-5x větším, než je největší smysluplný u vody (kde je asi 50° a voda by _skoro_ vycházela dobře, ale bohužel prostě nevychází). Kromě toho je otázka, jestli lepší, než písek by nebyl štěrk. Každopádně místo zasypávání instalatérských rozvodů do rozpáleného písku bych volil třeba pasivní heat pipy (hliníkové? v podstatě obří chladič CPU, zabořený do štěrku nebo písku...) aby veškeré topenářské komponenty, ve kterých přímo cirkuluje voda, byly snadno přístupné a opravitelné a to bez ohledu na teplotu akumulačního média.

nekdo random na redditu se snazi rozebrat dynamiku mezi ruznymi klimatology

SS: We Study Climate Change. We Can’t Explain What We’re Seeing. - Gavin Schmidt (Head of GISS) and Zeke Hausfather (Berkeley Earth)

This "opinion" piece in today's NYT is basically a position statement from the Moderate faction in Climate Science. Schmidt and Hausfather are the "serious science" voices in that faction. As opposed to people like Michael Mann who pushes "hopium" and has stated that he views "doomism" as a "mental illness".

It's significant both for what it says and for what it doesn't say.

What it says that's important:

"The earth has been exceptionally warm of late, with every month from June 2023 until this past September breaking records."

"It has been considerably hotter even than climate scientists expected."

"Average temperatures during the past 12 months have also been above the goal set by the Paris climate agreement: to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius over preindustrial levels."

-translation: We are now above +1.5°C, WAY sooner than the Moderates thought it was going to happen.

"the unusual jump in global temperatures starting in mid-2023 appears to be higher than our models predicted (even as they generally remain within the expected range)."

-translation: The temperatures are GENERALLY within "the expected range" of the Moderate General Climate Models BUT at the HIGH END of the models. Meaning "Climate Sensitivity" to 2XCO2 is probably higher than they thought.

"While there have been many partial hypotheses — new low-sulfur fuel standards for marine shipping, a volcanic eruption in 2022, lower Chinese aerosol emissions and El Niño perhaps behaving differently than in the recent past."

-translation: 4 years ago we COMPLETELY ignored James Hansen when he predicted up to +0.6°C of warming from the change in marine diesel. Zeke estimated only +0.06°C of warming would result from that change. We would rather DIE than admit Hansen was right, but NOTHING ELSE explains what's happened.

"we remain far from a consensus explanation even more than a year after we first noticed the anomalies. And that makes us uneasy."

-translation: We don't know what's going on and we're scared.

"Why is it taking so long for climate scientists to grapple with these questions?"

-translation: The theories and models of the Moderates aren't working is why BUT they cannot admit that the Alarmists might have been right all along. So now, they are spending a LOT of time trying out EVERY OTHER possible explanation.

"It turns out that we do not have systems in place to explore the significance of shorter-term phenomena in the climate in anything approaching real time. But we need them badly. It’s now time for government science agencies to provide more timely updates in response to the rapid changes in the climate."

-translation: We need MORE MONEY to build out a better climate monitoring system.

Which is what the rest of the piece is a plea for.

The graphs are interesting and give a good idea of just how much 2023 and 2024 have been OFF THE CHARTS bad.

clanek zde https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/13/opinion/climate-change-heat-planet.html?unlocked_article_code=1.aU4.yUZL.WUVZeJCH6AiT&smid=re-share

Fears of ‘mass grave’ in Valencia as storms batter Majorca & 5,000 more troops deployed
https://youtu.be/tL9Q_cZxSMY?t=258&si=jGF01ohrKSae3uhG


Wars, famines, droughts, floods
Hurricanes, heat waves, murders, thugs
Chaos, refugees, stress, disease
Extinction, disaster, I-P-C-C

TADEAS

DESMOND: vetsina energie se uklada do oceanu, je to nejen carbon sink, ale i heat sink... diky stabilizaci tepla skrze oceany se na planete vubec mohl vytvorit zivot.

20 let staré studie (níže), tedy dnes nepříliš relevatní, vzhledem k obrovskému posunu v klimatologii, ale jen pro kontext.
Těch faktorů je samozřejmě více, ale pakliže má člověk povědomí o tom jak planetární systémy fungují a jsou ovlivněny, tak je zkrátka realitou, že jakýkoliv extrém je dnes amplifikován globálním ohříváním - ať už mluvíme o síle nebo četnosti.

Ač se energetická bilance opravdu rozjela až v začátcích 21. století, tan surplus byl obrovský již na přelomu století


Summer Floods in Central Europe – Climate Change Track? (2005)

In Central Europe, river flooding has been recently recognized as a major hazard, in
particular after the 1997 Odra /Oder flood, the 2001 Vistula flood, and the most destructive
2002 deluge on the Labe/Elbe.

Having observed that flood risk and vulnerability are likely to have grown in many areas,
one is curious to understand the reasons for growth. These can be sought in socio-economic
domain (humans encroaching into floodplain areas), terrestrial systems
(land-cover changes – urbanization, deforestation, reduction of wetlands, river regulation),
and climate system.
The atmospheric capacity to absorb moisture, its potential water content, and thus
potential for intense precipitation, are likely to increase in a warmer climate.

General acceleration of hydrological cycle in the warming world, observed already to
some extent and projected in the future to a larger extent, leads to the con-
clusion that intense summer precipitation events could be on the rise.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11069-004-4547-6


The central European floods of August 2002: Part 2 - Synoptic causes and considerations with respect to climatic change (2003)

The Elbe flood of August 2002 was caused by extreme rainfall in a large area. The associated
circulation pattern was rather typical of previous flood events both in recent years and in
the more distant past.

The model simulations consid ered suggest that their frequency might increase in the future.

According to Fricke and Kaminski (2001) an increase of days with extreme precipitation can
already be observed in the long station time-series of the Hohenpeissenberg Observatory
in southern Germany.

This seems to agree with the trends produced in simulations of anthropogenic climate change.

https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/32832/

hit wave

Hundreds of weather stations from Canada to Mexico are living an unprecedented heat wave for late September.

35C/95F Moose Jaw 🇨🇦
113F/45C Phoenix AZ 🇺🇸!!!!!

Several degrees above any temperature ever recorded so late, and it will get worse.

This heat wave is rewriting climatic history—John McHenry

In Overshoot: How the World Surrendered to Climate Breakdown, Andreas Malm and Wim Carton present a history of the present phase of the crisis, likely to extend decades into the future, as the fossil fuel industry swims in the largest profits ever made. Money continues to flow into the construction of pipelines, platforms, terminals, mines – assets that will have to be destroyed for the planet to remain liveable. Too much heat has become officially acceptable because such revolutionary destruction is not. But should the rest of us abide by that priority?

Unflinchingly critical of business-as-usual and the calls for surrender to it, sweeping in scope, stirring and sobering, Overshoot lays out the stakes for the climate struggle in the years ahead.

Overshoot: How the World Surrendered to Climate Breakdown | Verso Books
https://www.versobooks.com/products/3131-overshoot

GLOBETROTTER: Jako imho na tom neco castecne bude. Problem s Lomborgem je, ze ocividne ma svoji agendu a absolutne se mu neda verit v zaverech, ktery z dat vyvozuje. Ma strasne dlouhou historii prekrucovani dat, v podstate do kazdy debaty kam prisel, tak se ohrazovali odbornici v dany oblasti, vcetne lidi, jejichz studie pro svoji argumentaci pouzival. Zrovna konkretne tenhle clanek jsem necetl (za paywallem, nemuzes sem hodit cely plz?), ale predpokladam, ze to bude variace na toto:

“In the [2015] article[3], we computed both cold and heat-related deaths in a number of locations and countries, and indeed the former were much larger. However, the analysis focuses on the historical period and does not compute the differences in both cold and heat-related deaths in scenarios with and without climate change. That is, it provides no information on if the predicted decrease in cold-related deaths will offset the predicted increase in heat-related deaths.

Lomborg and others who have cited my 2015 article to support the claim that climate change will be beneficial conveniently ignore that we actually addressed this question in the following article published in The Lancet Planetary Health[4], where we computed such a ‘net’ effect. It turned out that in many countries, especially in highly populated tropical areas, the increase in heat-related deaths is much higher than the reduction in cold-related deaths, with an increase in net mortality, especially under more extreme scenarios of global warming. A separate analysis led by other research groups[5,6] has confirmed these results in both the US and Europe.”

Global warming contributes to increased heat-related mortality, contrary to Bjorn Lomborg’s unsupported claims that climate change is saving hundreds of thousands of lives each year - Science Feedback...
https://science.feedback.org/review/global-warming-contributes-to-increased-heat-related-mortality-contrary-to-bjorn-lomborgs-unsupported-claims-that-climate-change-is-saving-hundreds-of-thousands-of-lives-each-year/

white, driver

UPS faces backlash from extreme heat incidents: ‘I got flowers and that was it’ | Extreme heat | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/sep/07/ups-heat-death-texas

Tridilna serie. Cely zajmavy

From Dissipating Clouds to Record-Setting Areas of Drought, the State of the Climate in 2023 Was Shockingly Severe | Discover Magazine
https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/from-dissipating-clouds-to-record-setting-areas-of-drought-the-state-of-the

Here in Part 3 of the series, I look at some of the other impacts, starting with one that took me surprise: In addition to being the warmest year, 2023 was also the least cloudy ever observed globally in records dating back four decades. Some areas saw particularly steep declines in cloudiness, including the Indian Ocean, the Arctic, and Northern Hemisphere.

The global average for cloud cover in 2023 was the lowest ever recorded.
...
In 2023, the report concludes that clouds reflected away to space the smallest amount of energy from the Sun ever observed. That meant more solar energy reached the surface to cause warming. But at the same time, clouds blocked the least amount of heat energy from escaping to space from the surface.

Teasing out the net effect from changes in cloudiness is complicated, because different kinds of clouds have different impacts. With that caveat in mind, the report concludes that the overall impact "was the weakest cooling effect of clouds on record." And this, in turn, reinforced 2023's shocking warmth.
...
In fact, the amount of precipitation that fell during the year was one of the lowest in records going back to 1979. At the same time, the intensity of rain that did fall increased, which can contribute to damaging deluges.

As the report points out, this is just what scientists have long expected with a warming climate.
...
Emissions of CO2 by the most advanced economies of the world have peaked and are dropping — even as economic growth continues. They're accomplishing this through efforts to use energy more efficiently, along with a massive ramp-up in renewables. And this points the way forward toward a day when we may finally tame the climate crisis.

Poorer people bear brunt of extreme heat in Europe, say Spanish researchers | Extreme heat | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/28/poorer-people-bear-brunt-of-extreme-heat-in-europe-say-spanish-researchers

“A heatwave is not the same when you’re in a shared room with three other people and no air conditioning, as when you’re in a villa with access to a pool and air conditioning.”

low-paid, brown

‘Working here is hell’: latest death of farm worker in 40C heat shocks Italy | Workers' rights | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/aug/27/indian-migrant-worker-death-heat-stress-italy