“We have never seen anything like this before”
– Carlo Buontempo, director of Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service quoted in the Washington Post, 07-06-2023.
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Scientists say to brace for more extreme weather and probably a record-warm 2023 amid unprecedented temperatures.
New precedents have been set in recent weeks and months, surprising some scientists with their swift evolution: historically warm oceans, with North Atlantic temperatures already nearing their typical annual peak; unparalleled low sea ice levels around Antarctica, where global warming impacts had, until now, been slower to appear; and the planet experiencing its warmest June ever charted, according to new data.
And then, on Monday, came Earth’s hottest day in at least 125,000 years. Tuesday was hotter.
“We have never seen anything like this before,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. He said any number of charts and graphs on Earth’s climate are showing, quite literally, that “we are in uncharted territory.”
It is no shock that global warming is accelerating — scientists were anticipating that would come with the onset of El Niño, the infamous climate pattern that reemerged last month. It is known for unleashing surges of heat and moisture that trigger extreme floods and storms in some places, and droughts and fires in others.
But the hot conditions are developing too quickly, and across more of the planet, to be explained solely by El Niño. Records are falling around the globe many months ahead of El Niño’s peak impact, which typically hits in December and sends global temperatures soaring for months to follow…
More articles on the hottest day on record:
Scientists warn that a crucial ocean current could collapse, altering global weather – the Los Angeles Times
Scientists warn that a crucial ocean current could collapse, altering global weather…The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, is a system of ocean currents that circulate water in the Atlantic Ocean like a conveyor belt, helping to redistribute heat and regulate global and regional climates. New research, however, warns that the AMOC is weakening under a warming climate, and could potentially suffer a dangerous and abrupt collapse with worldwide consequences…
Atmospheric river storms are getting stronger, and deadlier. The race to understand them is on – the Guardian
As the climate crisis supercharges storms over the Pacific, scientists are creating tools that can measure them from the inside..
Category 6-level hurricanes are already here, a new study says – Grist Magazine
In the real world, Category 5 is synonymous with the biggest and baddest storms. But some U.S. scientists are making the case that it no longer captures the intensity of recent hurricanes. A paper published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences lays out a framework for extending the current hurricane-rating system…with a new category for storms that have winds topping 192 miles per hour. According to the study, the world has already seen storms that would qualify as Category 6s…
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