When it comes to how climate change affected the Earth’s average surface temperature in 2021, there’s good news and bad news: the good news is that 2021 was only the sixth hottest year on record, roughly tying with 2018. The bad news is that the other five years that beatread more
Despite calls by the scientific community for the world to dramatically cut greenhouse gas production to address the problem of global warming, worldwide carbon dioxide emissions rose by 2.7 percent over the course of 2018, the largest increase seen in seven years. This news follows a series of call-to-arms warnings released by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the U.S. Government’s National Climate Assessment, warning of the urgent need to cut emissions; additionally, a prediction from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) forecasts that El Niño conditions are very likely to form in the Pacific Ocean over the winter — conditions that may push 2019 into being the hottest year on record.
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Over the summer of 2016 in the southern hemisphere, the world’s largest ice shelf, Antarctica’s Ross Ice Shelf, suffered a massive surface melt event that covered an area larger than the state of Texas, with the meltwater pooling in some areas for over two weeks.
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The World Meteorological Organization is forecasting a possible return of the El Niño phenomenon to the Pacific Ocean later this year, hot on the heels of the 2015-2016 back-to-back El Niño events, with only a short-lived, milquetoast La Niña cooling period having occurred in between.
The WMO, drawing on recent observations, climate models and historical trends, predicts that there is a 50-60 percent chance of a reoccurrence of El Niño before 2017 ends. Regional El Niño-associated warming in the Eastern Pacific has already caused heavy rains in Peru and Ecuador, leading to extensive flooding. The sea surface temperatures in the far eastern tropical Pacific have been 2ºC above normal during February and March.
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