On this episode of the Across the Sky podcast, the Lee weather team sat down to talk about how to adapt to global warming. About the Across the Sky podcast. The weekly weather podcast is hosted on a rotation by the Lee Weather team: Matt Holiner of Lee Enterprises' Midwest group in Chicago, …
Despite being in the depths of winter, heat has been in the news. This past week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that 2023 was the fifth warmest year on record in the United States.
The four years that were warmer than 2023 have all come since 2012.
The nationally averaged temperature was 54.4 degrees, about 2.4 degrees warmer than the average temperature over the entire 20th century, and it was the 27th consecutive year that was warmer than the 20th century average.
No part of the continental United States was near normal or even cooler than normal. With the exception of West Virginia, every state east of the Mississippi River had one of its 10 hottest years on record. Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas all had their hottest years.
During the peak of the June heat in Texas, Rio Grande City and Del Rio each reached 113 degrees Fahrenheit and San Angelo reached 114 F, establishing new all-time records for heat in all of those cities.
On Friday, NOAA and NASA jointly reported that 2023 was the warmest year on record globally. Using data from proxy records such as tree rings, ocean sediments, and polar ice cores, suggests it was the warmest year since the end of the last ice age 10,000 years ago.
The consistently warming climate, primarily caused by the burning of fossil fuels for energy, remains the primary driver for the increase in temperature over the past few decades. Carbon dioxide emissions continue to climb and have now reached 421 parts per million in the atmosphere, an increase of 33 percent since direct observations began in 1958.
Although the amount may sound small, a little carbon dioxide goes a long way in warming the atmosphere. By comparison, the concentration of ozone in the middle atmosphere is even smaller, yet it absorbs nearly all of the highest energy ultraviolet rays from the sun, making life on land possible.
This year was expected by many in the scientific community to be among the five warmest on record globally, so there has been some discussion about what put 2023 over the top.
Extra water vapor in the stratosphere from a volcanic eruption, lower-polluting shipping fuels in the North Atlantic Ocean and the periodic warming of the Pacific Ocean called El Niño have all been tossed around as reasons that earth's temperature got an extra nudge.
In addition to the heat in the United States, the exceedingly warm and dry spring in Canada led to its largest fire season on record. More than twice the area was burned compared to the previous record in 1995.
And several times during the spring and summer, winds brought that wildfire smoke into the United States, creating some of the most visceral images of the year and the worst air pollution in decades. While such a season should not be considered a new normal, it is consistent with what the scientific community understands about the warming climate.
In the absence of something huge, like a massive volcanic eruption akin to Mount Pinatubo in 1991, the average temperature for 2024 will probably be in the same ballpark as the last few years. Whether it exceeds the temperature for 2023 is debatable. But either way, it does not change the general path of the warming climate.
Just like every spring day is not warmer than the previous one, summer always comes. And even if 2024 is not warmer than 2023, the general warming trend will continue. A more daunting question, given the extra jump in temperature last year, is whether the warming is accelerating.
But it will take a few more years before we know for sure.
Sean Sublette is the chief meteorologist for the Richmond Times-Dispatch in Virginia.
From wildfires to floods, photos reveal intensity of climate change in 2023