Scientists: record temperatures put the Earth on an “uncharted path”
A series of records for high temperatures, ocean temperature and sea ice in Antarctica has alarmed some scientists who say its speed and timing are “unprecedented”, according to the BBC.
The United Nations says dangerous heatwaves in Europe could break more records.
It is difficult to immediately link these events to climate change; Because weather and oceans are very complicated things. Studies are underway, but scientists already fear that some worst-case scenarios could unfold.
“I’m not aware of a similar period when all parts of the climate system were in an abnormal state — a record breaker,” says Thomas Smith, an environmental geographer at the London School of Economics.
Two tourists shelter from the sun with an umbrella during the heat wave in Greece (AP)
Paolo Seppi, Lecturer in Climate Sciences at Imperial College London, says that “the Earth is on an uncharted path – an unexplored situation yet” now due to global warming from burning fossil fuels, as well as the heat generated by the first El Niño – a natural warm weather system – since 2018.
Here are four climate records that have been broken so far this summer: the hottest day on record, the hottest June on record globally, extreme marine heatwaves and record-low Antarctic sea ice.
The world witnessed its hottest day ever in July, which broke the world temperature record in 2016.
The global average temperature exceeded 17°C for the first time; It reached 17.08 degrees Celsius on July 6, according to the European Union’s climate monitoring service (Copernicus).
Continuous emissions from burning fossil fuels such as oil, coal and gas are behind the global warming trend on the planet.
This is exactly what would have been expected in a world with more greenhouse gases, says climatologist Dr Frederic Otto of Imperial College London. “Humans are 100 percent behind the upward trend,” she added.
“If anything surprises me, it’s that we see records broken in June early in the year,” explains Dr. Smith. The (El Nino) phenomenon does not have a truly global impact until five or six months after the start of the stage.
El Niño is the world’s most powerful naturally occurring climate variability – associated with bringing warmer water to the surface in the tropical Pacific Ocean and forcing warmer air into the atmosphere. It usually increases global air temperatures.
The global average temperature in June this year was 1.47 degrees Celsius higher than a typical June in the pre-industrial period. Humans began pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere when the Industrial Revolution began around 1800.
When asked if summer 2023 was what he had predicted a decade ago, Smith said climate models are good at predicting long-term trends, but less good at predicting the next 10 years.
He adds, “The models from the 1990s pretty much put us where we are today, but getting an idea of what the next 10 years will look like will be very difficult… Things won’t calm down.”
Extreme sea heat waves
The average global ocean temperature broke records for May, June and July, and the numbers are close to the highest sea surface temperature ever recorded, which was in 2016, but it is the extreme heat in the North Atlantic that is of particular concern to scientists.
“We’ve never had a marine heat wave in this part of the Atlantic,” says Daniela Schmidt, professor of earth sciences at the University of Bristol. did not expect that”.
Antarctic sea ice decline
The area covered in Antarctic sea ice hit a record low for the month of July. About 10 times more space than the UK is missing, compared to the 1981-2010 average.
Scientists are sounding alarm bells as they try to decipher the exact link to climate change.
A warming world could reduce Antarctic sea ice levels, but the current significant decline could also be due to local weather conditions or ocean currents, explains Dr Caroline Holmes of the British Antarctic Survey.
And she stressed that it is not just a record being broken in an ordinary way, but rather it is being broken dramatically, and she continued: “This is unlike anything we have seen before in July. It is 10 percent lower than the previous drop, which is a huge level.” Holmes calls it “another sign that we don’t really understand the pace of change.”
