Did the climate experience a Regime Change in 2023?

1 month ago 34

The astonishing rise in temperatures makes one wonder whether a Regime Change did take place in 2023.

The February 2024 temperature was 1.76°C above 1885-1915, potentially 2.75°C above pre-industrial (bright yellow inset right). The image was created by Sam Carana for Arctic-news.blogspot.com with an April 2024 data.giss.nasa.gov screenshot. The red line (6 months Lowess smoothing) highlights the Regime Change that may have occurred in 2023.

The temperature rise since pre-industrial could be as large as 2.75°C, as discussed at the pre-industrial page. The extinction page points out that such a rise corresponds with almost ⅕ more water vapor in the atmosphere.

The image below shows world daily sea surface temperatures (60°S-60°N) through April 8, 2024.

For more than a year, sea surface temperatures have been much higher than in any previous year on record, as if temperatures suddenly shifted into another gear and the climate experienced a Regime Change in 2023.

There is no single feedback behind such a Regime Change, instead there are numerous non-linear feedbacks that may have all started to interact and kick in with greater ferocity, amplifying and accelerating the rise.

Such feedbacks may include more water vapor (as mentioned above), stronger storms, increased stratification of oceans, loss of sea ice, loss of reflectivity of clouds and increased freshwater accumulating at the surface of oceans, due to stronger ice melting, due to heavier runoff from land and rivers and due to changes in wind patterns and ocean currents and circulation.

Climate Emergency Declaration

The situation is dire and the precautionary principle calls for rapid, comprehensive and effective action to reduce the damage and to improve the situation, as described in this 2022 post, where needed in combination with a Climate Emergency Declaration, as discussed at this group.