2015 likely to be hottest year ever recorded
NYT News Service | Oct 23, 2015, 12.52 AM IST
The first nine months of 2015 were the hottest since 1880. A man walks along the boardwalk at Coney Island in ... Read More
Global temperatures are running far above last year's record-setting level, all but guaranteeing that 2015 will be the hottest year in the historical record — and undermining political claims that global warming had somehow stopped.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the American agency that tracks worldwide temperatures, announced Wednesday that last month had been the hottest September on record, and in fact took the biggest leap above the previous September that any month has displayed since 1880, when tracking began at a global scale. The agency also announced that the January-to-September period had been the hottest such span on the books.
The extreme heat and related climate disturbances mean that delegates to a global climate conference scheduled for Paris in early December will almost certainly be convening as weather-related disasters are unfolding around the world, putting them under greater political pressure to reach an ambitious deal to limit future emissions and slow the temperature increase.
The immediate cause of the record-breaking warmth is a strong El Nino weather pattern, in which the ocean releases immense amounts of heat into the atmosphere. But temperatures are running so far ahead of those during the last strong El Nino, in 1997 and 1998, that scientists said the records would not be occurring without an underlying trend caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases.
"The bottom line is that the world is warming," said Jessica Blunden, a climate scientist with NOAA, in Asheville, NC.
She pointed to measurements in several of the world's ocean basins, where surface temperatures are as much as three degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average, a substantial increase when calculated over such large areas.
"We're seeing it all across the Indian Ocean, in huge parts of the Atlantic Ocean, in parts of the Arctic oceans," Dr Blunden said in an interview. "It's just incredible to me. I've never seen anything like this before."
The combined effects of El Nino and greenhouse warming are already roiling weather patterns worldwide, probably contributing to dry weather and forest fires in Indonesia, to an incipient drought in Australia and to a developing food emergency across parts of Africa, including a severe drought in Ethiopia. Those effects are likely to intensify in coming months as the El Nino reaches its peak and then gradually subsides.
Past patterns suggest that El Nino will send unusual amounts of rain and snow to the American Southwest and to California, offering some relief for that parched state but also precipitating floods and mudslides. The California effects are not a certainty, experts said, but if they come, they are likely to be strongest in the latter part of the winter.
READ ALSO: Migratory birds keep away due to warm weather
Earlier this year, the global warmth contributed to a spring heat wave in India and Pakistan that killed many people, possibly several thousand, with temperatures hitting 118 degrees in parts of India. The effects on the natural world have also been severe, with extreme ocean temperatures bleaching coral reefs around the world, and many of them likely to suffer lasting damage.
Forecasters have been issuing warnings about a strong El Nino. The coming few months will test whether governments, and the global relief agencies that support poor countries, have prepared, particularly to provide food relief for hard-hit regions.
"The warning is out," said Richard Seager, a climate scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, in New York. "The world has had time to plan for this."
Though worldwide in its consequences, El Nino originates in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, when normal weather patterns shift in a way that allows the ocean to release large amounts of stored-up heat into the atmosphere. That perturbs atmospheric waves that can travel thousands of miles, redistributing heat and moisture around the globe.
The effects can be profound, with some research even suggesting that civil wars become more likely in tropical countries when they are under stress from an El Nino.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the American agency that tracks worldwide temperatures, announced Wednesday that last month had been the hottest September on record, and in fact took the biggest leap above the previous September that any month has displayed since 1880, when tracking began at a global scale. The agency also announced that the January-to-September period had been the hottest such span on the books.
The extreme heat and related climate disturbances mean that delegates to a global climate conference scheduled for Paris in early December will almost certainly be convening as weather-related disasters are unfolding around the world, putting them under greater political pressure to reach an ambitious deal to limit future emissions and slow the temperature increase.
The immediate cause of the record-breaking warmth is a strong El Nino weather pattern, in which the ocean releases immense amounts of heat into the atmosphere. But temperatures are running so far ahead of those during the last strong El Nino, in 1997 and 1998, that scientists said the records would not be occurring without an underlying trend caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases.
"The bottom line is that the world is warming," said Jessica Blunden, a climate scientist with NOAA, in Asheville, NC.
She pointed to measurements in several of the world's ocean basins, where surface temperatures are as much as three degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average, a substantial increase when calculated over such large areas.
"We're seeing it all across the Indian Ocean, in huge parts of the Atlantic Ocean, in parts of the Arctic oceans," Dr Blunden said in an interview. "It's just incredible to me. I've never seen anything like this before."
The combined effects of El Nino and greenhouse warming are already roiling weather patterns worldwide, probably contributing to dry weather and forest fires in Indonesia, to an incipient drought in Australia and to a developing food emergency across parts of Africa, including a severe drought in Ethiopia. Those effects are likely to intensify in coming months as the El Nino reaches its peak and then gradually subsides.
Past patterns suggest that El Nino will send unusual amounts of rain and snow to the American Southwest and to California, offering some relief for that parched state but also precipitating floods and mudslides. The California effects are not a certainty, experts said, but if they come, they are likely to be strongest in the latter part of the winter.
READ ALSO: Migratory birds keep away due to warm weather
Earlier this year, the global warmth contributed to a spring heat wave in India and Pakistan that killed many people, possibly several thousand, with temperatures hitting 118 degrees in parts of India. The effects on the natural world have also been severe, with extreme ocean temperatures bleaching coral reefs around the world, and many of them likely to suffer lasting damage.
Forecasters have been issuing warnings about a strong El Nino. The coming few months will test whether governments, and the global relief agencies that support poor countries, have prepared, particularly to provide food relief for hard-hit regions.
"The warning is out," said Richard Seager, a climate scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, in New York. "The world has had time to plan for this."
Though worldwide in its consequences, El Nino originates in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, when normal weather patterns shift in a way that allows the ocean to release large amounts of stored-up heat into the atmosphere. That perturbs atmospheric waves that can travel thousands of miles, redistributing heat and moisture around the globe.
The effects can be profound, with some research even suggesting that civil wars become more likely in tropical countries when they are under stress from an El Nino.
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