Global Average Temperature 2023

[Typhoon Tip]

1 hour ago, TheClimateChanger said:

 

Mainstream mentalities are utterly oblivious ... carrying on in their relative Industrial-provisional bliss. 

Which it really is an apropos description ...

It's such a deadly combination. Create a bubble within a surrounding super structure that injures the super structure in such a way that will inevitable cause the bubble to "pop" - meanwhile those that created the bubble ( and continue to perpetuate its existence the human species ...) are provisionally soothed and molly-coddled and alleviated from ever seeing the consequence of said injury until it is too late? 

That's really what the Industrial Revolution ...  no scratch Industrial Revolution ... it was always how we powered it mechanization.  

[chubbs]

 

[TheClimateChanger]

On 9/27/2023 at 10:29 AM, Typhoon Tip said:

Mainstream mentalities are utterly oblivious ... carrying on in their relative Industrial-provisional bliss. 

Which it really is an apropos description ...

It's such a deadly combination. Create a bubble within a surrounding super structure that injures the super structure in such a way that will inevitable cause the bubble to "pop" - meanwhile those that created the bubble ( and continue to perpetuate its existence the human species ...) are provisionally soothed and molly-coddled and alleviated from ever seeing the consequence of said injury until it is too late? 

That's really what the Industrial Revolution ...  no scratch Industrial Revolution ... it was always how we powered it mechanization.  

 

[bdgwx]

The July EEI from CERES is in. The 12 month average stands at +1.97 W/m2 while the 36 month average is stands at +1.48 W/m2. 

Theoretically as the planet warms the EEI drops assuming no further increase in radiative force anyway. Yet the EEI marches higher.  

[chubbs]

14 hours ago, bdgwx said:

The July EEI from CERES is in. The 12 month average stands at +1.97 W/m2 while the 36 month average is stands at +1.48 W/m2. 

Theoretically as the planet warms the EEI drops assuming no further increase in radiative force anyway. Yet the EEI marches higher.  

Interesting to look at the differences between ninos in chart above. 2009/10 had a large drop in TOA flux while 15/16 had a small increase. Hopefully we get a good explanation for this years TOA Flux and temperature spikes.

A couple of reasons why TOA flux wouldn't neccessarily track surface temperature: 1) Radiation leaves the earth from the upper troposphere. If the atmosphere is stable, surface warming may not increase outgoing radiation much. This enso is east-based and the east Pacific has cooler waters and a stable atmosphere; 2) Positive feedbacks kick-in with warming, increased water vapor and decreased low-level clouds. Again low-level cloud effects are maximized in E Pac.

[bluewave]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/12/12/climate-change-clouds-equilibrium-sensitivity/

But just in the past few years, researchers have also discovered that the number of low-level stratus or stratocumulus clouds are expected to decrease as the planet continues to warm. One study, in the journal Nature Climate Change, used satellite observations to discover how cloud formation is affected by ocean temperatures, wind speed, humidity and other factors — and then analyzed how those factors will change as the world warms.

“We concluded that as the ocean warms, the low-level clouds over the oceans tend to dissipate,” said Myers, one of the authors of the study. That means that there are fewer clouds to reflect sunlight and cool the earth — and the change in low-level clouds will also amplify global warming.

[TheClimateChanger]

 

[TheClimateChanger]

Looking at graphs like this, it should be apparent that this is Canada's version of Australia's Black Summer of 2019-2020. Will be interesting to see whether this results in a miniature volcanic winter in the Northern Hemisphere.

Smoke from Australia's Black Summer fires are known to have cooled the earth, particularly in the southern hemisphere, and possibly increased the chances of that multi-year La Nina: Smoke from the Black Summer wildfires in Australia impacted climate, high-altitude winds of the Southern Hemisphere (phys.org)

A recent study found wildfire smoke and volcanic emissions have offset 20% of the warming which would have otherwise occurred since 2015: Smoke from volcanoes and wildfires have a parallel cooling effect, but it won’t do much to quell global warming | Enterprise

Will be interesting to see whether this has any sort of lasting impact on the global, or regional, climate. For the record, there have been a number of intense outbreaks of pyroCb sufficient to loft a significant quantity of soot and smoke into the lower stratosphere over the course of the summer.

[TheClimateChanger]

I've been following this for awhile, and it's been interesting to see the dense smoke interacting with the lower sun angles over the high latitudes. Nuuk, Greenland was very dark at midmorning a few days ago, and I saw many in Atlantic Canada observed strange, pale sun through the nearly opaque layer of smoke. Even in the UK, the sun has been significantly dimmed behind the pall of smoke. I wonder if the limited solar radiation will help to promote some early season cold air masses.

[Typhoon Tip]

"...French weather authority Meteo-France said the September temperature average in the country will be around 21.5 degrees Celsius (70.7 degrees Fahrenheit), between 3.5C and 3.6C above the 1991-2020 reference period.... "

https://phys.org/news/2023-09-european-countries-september-temperature.html

These local time-scale surges in T are notably increasing in frequency around the world.  And, they are about as straight forward an empirical proof for the actual acceleration of climate change ( meaning that is speeding up) as there can exist. 

During this last 20 to 30 years of the ongoing science and debate ...  it's often been cited (rightfully so) that climate change moves at the pace of decimals.  What is interesting is that these increasing occurrence rates, they are manifesting at whole degrees or even multiples.   So while the decimals aspect may still be the case, how many of these regional explosions of warmth can we add to the computation?

 

 

[TheClimateChanger]

11 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

"...French weather authority Meteo-France said the September temperature average in the country will be around 21.5 degrees Celsius (70.7 degrees Fahrenheit), between 3.5C and 3.6C above the 1991-2020 reference period.... "

https://phys.org/news/2023-09-european-countries-september-temperature.html

These local time-scale surges in T are notably increasing in frequency around the world.  And, they are about as straight forward an empirical proof for the actual acceleration of climate change ( meaning that is speeding up) as there can exist. 

During this last 20 to 30 years of the ongoing science and debate ...  it's often been cited (rightfully so) that climate change moves at the pace of decimals.  What is interesting is that these increasing occurrence rates, they are manifesting at whole degrees or even multiples.   So while the decimals aspect may still be the case, how many of these regional explosions of warmth can we add to the computation?

 

Incredible.

Closer to home, there were quite a few October monthly records - highest recorded maximum and/or minimum temperatures for the month - over the Midwestern U.S. yesterday. They've had some pretty impressive late season heat this year - with record-breaking heat indices for the month of August, and in some cases, all-time, in late August; a major heat wave in early September, which broken many daily records and approached/exceeded monthly records in some spots, and now an impressive heat spell here to begin October. It hasn't translated east much, however.

[bdgwx]

In the UAH dataset 2023/09 broke the all time record by 0.20 C and broke the previous September record by 0.45 C. 

And since UAH lags ENSO by 4-5 months it is more likely than not that this is not yet the peak. In fact, we are only just barely seeing the El Nino response right now since the 4 and 5 month lagged ONI values are 0.5 and 0.2 respectively.

[TheClimateChanger]

 

[Typhoon Tip]

I've read of speculation that a kind of whip-lash at planetary scales (... like 'thermal elasticity')  recoiled when the La Nina basal state crossed some threshold on its way to its demise. And then en masse the entire system snapped very warm.

I don't know if I like that hypothesis.  I don't hate it ... but,  I don't see how that happens mechanically. It certainly sounds intriguing from a kind of Science Fictional passage along a holocaust theme.  There are no mechanisms in the atmospheric 'organic' mechanics to generate/add heat as such.  Heat has to be either given or taken through the evaporation/condensation of water vapor, or, through irradiance power of the sun.

The sun spends equal time on either side of the Equator.

Evaporation and condensation is effected by heat, but in either case, that state is static relative to the rate in which these global temperature surges took place - that doesn't seem to add up.

It's really weird... 

My immediate napkin logic wants to suggest that the El Nino is buried inside these changes that have been observed over these last 9 months - and by buried, I mean subsumed by them. In other words, not the cause. The last time there was a global temperature response that 'seemed' to be connected physically to a warm ENSO that even comes close to these last 9 months, was 1998 ( a "super nino" event).  But here's the thing ... that global spike in temperatures lagged the ENSO peak by some 6 months.  If using just the SST metric, according to CPC, the 1997-1998 El Nino peaked around November/Dec of 1997;  the thermal resonance was noted in the spring of 1998. 

The warmth we are observing all over the planet, air and sea, predates the onset of the El Nino.

That's why I wonder if the current arriving mode of ENSO is really driving this warmth at all. It seems the warmth we have seen materialize since May has/is engulfed any El Nino to the point where geo-physically parsing out how much is contributory to how much is tantamount to not likely to be determined with a whole helluva lot of confidence.  The causality/circuitry would have to include too much supposition for certitude.

OR, here's an idea...  there is indeed a separate systemic response that has caused all this warming, and the ENSO has yet to add too it.

[chubbs]

3 hours ago, bdgwx said:

In the UAH dataset 2023/09 broke the all time record by 0.20 C and broke the previous September record by 0.45 C. 

And since UAH lags ENSO by 4-5 months it is more likely than not that this is not yet the peak. In fact, we are only just barely seeing the El Nino response right now since the 4 and 5 month lagged ONI values are 0.5 and 0.2 respectively.

Wow. Way above recent mod+ nino Septembers:

Sept 1997:  -0.11

Sept. 2002: 0.04

Sept 2009:  0.10

Sept 2015:  0.09

[TheDreamTraveler]

On 10/2/2023 at 12:36 PM, Typhoon Tip said:

I've read of speculation that a kind of whip-lash at planetary scales (... like 'thermal elasticity')  recoiled when the La Nina basal state crossed some threshold on its way to its demise. And then en masse the entire system snapped very warm.

I don't know if I like that hypothesis.  I don't hate it ... but,  I don't see how that happens mechanically. It certainly sounds intriguing from a kind of Science Fictional passage along a holocaust theme.  There are no mechanisms in the atmospheric 'organic' mechanics to generate/add heat as such.  Heat has to be either given or taken through the evaporation/condensation of water vapor, or, through irradiance power of the sun.

The sun spends equal time on either side of the Equator.

Evaporation and condensation is effected by heat, but in either case, that state is static relative to the rate in which these global temperature surges took place - that doesn't seem to add up.

It's really weird... 

My immediate napkin logic wants to suggest that the El Nino is buried inside these changes that have been observed over these last 9 months - and by buried, I mean subsumed by them. In other words, not the cause. The last time there was a global temperature response that 'seemed' to be connected physically to a warm ENSO that even comes close to these last 9 months, was 1998 ( a "super nino" event).  But here's the thing ... that global spike in temperatures lagged the ENSO peak by some 6 months.  If using just the SST metric, according to CPC, the 1997-1998 El Nino peaked around November/Dec of 1997;  the thermal resonance was noted in the spring of 1998. 

The warmth we are observing all over the planet, air and sea, predates the onset of the El Nino.

That's why I wonder if the current arriving mode of ENSO is really driving this warmth at all. It seems the warmth we have seen materialize since May has/is engulfed any El Nino to the point where geo-physically parsing out how much is contributory to how much is tantamount to not likely to be determined with a whole helluva lot of confidence.  The causality/circuitry would have to include too much supposition for certitude.

OR, here's an idea...  there is indeed a separate systemic response that has caused all this warming, and the ENSO has yet to add too it.

I'm really surprised the NASA study about Hunga Tonga's eruption adding 10% of the entire worlds water vapor high into the stratosphere doesn't get mentioned more. The study even states that the water vapor will spike the global temperature, we just don't know by exactly how much. The added water vapor will also take 5-10 years to fully dissipate so that is definitely helping with what's happening combined with features like El Nino etc. Remember no volcano in our records has ever ejected such high amounts of water vapor like this one did and NASA calls its effects unprecedented. Tonga was also the most powerful eruption since the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa. People forget that there is a lag period with volcanic eruptions and the effects are not truly felt until 1-3 years later depending on variability's. If you all remember Mt Pinatubo in 1991 it took 2 years for its effects to fully be realized. Around June when the warmth really spiked was around the time all of Hunga Tonga's water vapor had completely encircled the globe since it took 1.5 years for it to completely spread. 

[bdgwx]

We discussed the Hunga Tonga eruption a few pages back. I found peer reviewed publications concerning the topic. You can find them in this post.

The consensus is that the eruption won't likely have much of impact on the global average temperature though it may have a significant impact regionally.

And to be pedantic the 10% figure is the increase in stratospheric water vapor. The actual amount is only 150 MtH2O which isn't even a blip compared to how much is in the entire atmosphere. It's just that stratosphere is dry (a few ppm of H2O) and thin (~20% of the total air mass) so there actually isn't very much water vapor up there to begin with. It is important to point out that while there isn't much up there its effects are quite different as compared to the troposphere.

[chubbs]

55 minutes ago, bdgwx said:

We discussed the Hunga Tonga eruption a few pages back. I found peer reviewed publications concerning the topic. You can find them in this post.

The consensus is that the eruption won't likely have much of impact on the global average temperature though it may have a significant impact regionally.

And to be pedantic the 10% figure is the increase in stratospheric water vapor. The actual amount is only 150 MtH2O which isn't even a blip compared to how much is in the entire atmosphere. It's just that stratosphere is dry (a few ppm of H2O) and thin (~20% of the total air mass) so there actually isn't very much water vapor up there to begin with. It is important to point that while there isn't much up there its effects are quite different as compared to the troposphere.

Here's a Youtube of a recent hour long seminar on Hunga Tonga. The climate part starts at the 40 minute mark. tl:dr - the net impact is a very small cooling as aerosol effects balance water vapor.

 

[csnavywx]

On 9/15/2023 at 10:12 AM, bdgwx said:

I also monitor the daily JRA55 values. So far the implied value for GISTEMP coming from JRA is 1.36 C which is close to the record of 1.37 C set in 2016/02. JRA correlates with GISTEMP at R^2 = 0.87 so it is a pretty good predictor. As I've said before it is getting harder and harder to dismiss the accelerated warming hypothesis.

Lmfao. Crushed it. Ended at 0.17 above this. Legit shot of not only smashing Feb. 16 but also printing the first 1.5C in the GISS data set.

[chubbs]

 

[chubbs]

On 9/28/2023 at 3:46 PM, bdgwx said:

The July EEI from CERES is in. The 12 month average stands at +1.97 W/m2 while the 36 month average is stands at +1.48 W/m2. 

Theoretically as the planet warms the EEI drops assuming no further increase in radiative force anyway. Yet the EEI marches higher.  

One factor that could help explain the recent rise in TOA flux and this years temperature spike is underestimation of aerosol cooling impacts. There is a wide uncertainty band for aerosol cooling. Could be that aerosols impacts are in the upper portion of the band and have been suppressing GHG warming to a greater extent than expected. Most of the recent TOA flux increase is increased solar radiation hitting the surface consistent with reduced aerosol impact. Now that aerosol emissions are decreasing, GHG warming is realized to a greater extent  and TOA flux and temperature are responding. We will need to see an updated scientific assessment to be sure.

[bdgwx]

1 hour ago, chubbs said:

One factor that could help explain the recent rise in TOA flux and this years temperature spike is underestimation of aerosol cooling impacts. There is a wide uncertainty band for aerosol cooling. Could be that aerosols impacts are in the upper portion of the band and have been suppressing GHG warming to a greater extent than expected. Most of the recent TOA flux increase is increased solar radiation hitting the surface consistent with reduced aerosol impact. Now that aerosol emissions are decreasing, GHG warming is realized to a greater extent  and TOA flux and temperature are responding. We will need to see an updated scientific assessment to be sure.

Yep. And since aerosols mask the GHG warming that means if we've underestimated aerosol radiative forcing then we've underestimated GHG warming potential. 

[bdgwx]

Berkeley Earth issued their September report this morning.

One thing that stood out to me is that according to CMIP6 a record of this magnitude even in a warming world only has a 1-in-10000 chance of occurrence. Two hypothesis are presented to explain it. 1) The reduction in aerosols and 2) The Hunga-Tonga eruption.

https://berkeleyearth.org/september-2023-temperature-update/

[Typhoon Tip]

7 hours ago, bdgwx said:

Berkeley Earth issued their September report this morning.

One thing that stood out to me is that according to CMIP6 a record of this magnitude even in a warming world only has a 1-in-10000 chance of occurrence. Two hypothesis are presented to explain it. 1) The reduction in aerosols and 2) The Hunga-Tonga eruption.

https://berkeleyearth.org/september-2023-temperature-update/

Several observations about this graph...

1  it's too bad the x-axis ticks stop at 20 year intervals. I'd like see which months these individual points correspond to. I'm wondering (say) if the spikes are more common in the autumns.  Or perhaps spikes in general are more common during transition seasons. 

2 there is a "similar" magnitude lurch upwards in global temperature that took place just prior 1880 in terms of total d(T).  There are also rather impressive dips that some 80 or even 90% of this Septembers scalar delta that took place 1900, 1960 ... 1995 (Pinatubo?)    ... Anyway, 80% of 1::10000 chance of occurrence seems too steep considering what's taken place several times in the last 150 years.   

It depends though ... The 'odds of occurrence' may fall in some sort of log(x) decay ... Such that the top 20 or 10%s compared to the bottom 80, the odds get very long.

3 regardless, the trend is alarming.  There were two accelerations: a modest one around the 1930s; the one since 1980 is fascinating in that the low points along the accelerated rise, are usually about the same as the previous high point - hence the 45 deg slope.  But, what that means is there is never a step back.  wow

[bdgwx]

@Typhoon TipThe graph is only the Septembers. But yeah, I noticed that jump around 1878 as well. If Hunga Tonga really is having a significant effect then ok. But if it is the aerosol reduction then uh oh. That means we could have been underestimating global warming potential because aerosols were masking it this whole time.

[lookingnorth]

21 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

Several observations about this graph...

1  it's too bad the x-axis ticks stop at 20 year intervals. I'd like see which months these individual points correspond to. I'm wondering (say) if the spikes are more common in the autumns.  Or perhaps spikes in general are more common during transition seasons. 

2 there is a "similar" magnitude lurch upwards in global temperature that took place just prior 1880 in terms of total d(T).  There are also rather impressive dips that some 80 or even 90% of this Septembers scalar delta that took place 1900, 1960 ... 1995 (Pinatubo?)    ... Anyway, 80% of 1::10000 chance of occurrence seems too steep considering what's taken place several times in the last 150 years.   

It depends though ... The 'odds of occurrence' may fall in some sort of log(x) decay ... Such that the top 20 or 10%s compared to the bottom 80, the odds get very long.

3 regardless, the trend is alarming.  There were two accelerations: a modest one around the 1930s; the one since 1980 is fascinating in that the low points along the accelerated rise, are usually about the same as the previous high point - hence the 45 deg slope.  But, what that means is there is never a step back.  wow

There was a major El Nino in the late 1870s, that's probably the explanation for the spike in 1877 September temperature.

[GaWx]

2 hours ago, lookingnorth said:

There was a major El Nino in the late 1870s, that's probably the explanation for the spike in 1877 September temperature.

Indeed, what per Eric Webb’s tables is the strongest El Niño on record took place in 1877-8. It peaked at +2.9 both in NDJ and in DJF:

https://www.webberweather.com/ensemble-oceanic-nino-index.html

[Typhoon Tip]

22 hours ago, bdgwx said:

@Typhoon TipThe graph is only the Septembers. But yeah, I noticed that jump around 1878 as well. If Hunga Tonga really is having a significant effect then ok. But if it is the aerosol reduction then uh oh. That means we could have been underestimating global warming potential because aerosols were masking it this whole time.

Yeah, I didn't notice the title until after I posted... haha.   Too lazy -

Anyway, the issue with aerosols is interesting for me, because the aerosols collapse "might" be related to the industrial lapse that took place over an ~ 18 mo of pandemic arrest.  I don't know - supposition there.  

I'm also wondering what kind of geophysics they employed in the climate models.  You'd think they'd have thought to run 'perturbed' variants - kind of like climate model 'ensemble members' - same philosophy.  You tweak initial conditions around hypothetical/plausible states to see the possible different outcomes.  These are PHD's with visionary talents. 

W T F on that one.  Reduced aerosol model run seems like a no brainer?  I'm like c'mon.  

This particular Sept spike looks like about a 3 standard deviation event.  The average distance from the red curve that precedes it, appears close to 1/3 the total distance up that wild ride.   

I think you get into order of magnitude crisis, though.  The amount of force it takes to move a whole planetary atmosphere by 3 SD is something terrifyingly large.  Think of it this way... and flea can jump something like 50Xs it's height, because it doesn't weight anything.  What the world just did is got an elephant to do the same thing. One of those physical acts has a much more noticeable impact when it returns to earth.

The energy budget and restoring capacity might be overwhelmed? 

It's a struggle to visualize what in god's kinematics would be capable of moving that whole system, that quickly, but that much. I also point out that much of that rise took place prior to the onset of El Nino.  In fact, when all oceanic regions in every direction warmed along with the atmosphere, before there was any warm ENSO mechanics were observed.   I want that noted and explained. 

That has always struck me as "whip lash" ...perhaps even elasticity. Almost like conductance suppression was suddenly released, and there was a huge eV release.

[bluewave]

28 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

lso point out that much of that rise took place prior to the onset of El Nino.   I want that noted and explained. 

Yeah, Gavin Schmidt brought up that point in a recent tweet.

 

 

[Typhoon Tip]

7 minutes ago, bluewave said:

Yeah, Gavin Schmidt brought up that point in a recent tweet.

 

 

Yeah, it's quite reasonable to argue some other phenomenon at work