What makes 2023 the hottest year?

Weather of Arabia - Scientists say that climate change resulting from human activity leads to an increase in the strength of natural weather phenomena to generate severe heat waves in Asia, Europe and North America, making 2023 the hottest year since the start of climate records.

Here, experts explain how the year 2023 has become very hot, warning that record temperatures will get worse even if humans reduce emissions of greenhouse gases that cause the planet's temperature to rise.

El Nino effect on temperature

After a hot summer in 2022, this year the Pacific Ocean warming phenomenon known as El Niño has returned, causing the oceans to warm

According to an analysis by the US temperature monitoring group Berkeley Earth: "This phenomenon may have provided some additional warmth for the North Atlantic, but since El Niño is still in its infancy, its effect is likely to be minimal."

According to experts, there is an 81% chance that 2023 will be the hottest year since thermometer records began in the mid-19th century.

The effect of dust and sulfur on heat

The Atlantic Ocean may also be warming as two substances that normally reflect sunlight away from the ocean decrease: dust blowing in from the Sahara and sulfur from ship fuel.

Rohde's analysis of temperatures in the North Atlantic region pointed to exceptionally low levels of dust blowing from the Sahara in recent months, and Carsten Hausstein of Germany's Federal Climate Service said this was due to the unusually weak Atlantic trade winds.

And at the same time; New restrictions on shipping in 2020 reduced toxic sulfur emissions, and according to the analysis, this will not explain all of the current rise in temperatures in the North Atlantic but may exacerbate it.

Ocean effect on temperature

Ocean warming is affecting weather patterns on land, resulting in heat waves and droughts in some areas and storms in others.

"Hotter weather absorbs moisture and dumps it elsewhere, which is why scientists have highlighted the length and intensity of persistent cyclone systems that cause heatwaves and their effects on weather patterns," said Richard Allan, Professor of Climate Sciences at the University of Reading.

"When stagnant high-pressure areas persist over the continents, the air sinks and warms, clouds melt, causing intense summer sunshine that dries out the soil, heating the land and air above as heat waves linger in place for weeks," Allan said.

"The hot air rushing in from Africa is now staying where it is in Europe, with high-pressure conditions settling in, which means the heat in the warming sea, land and air continues to build," said Hannah Klock, a climate scientist at the University of Reading.

The role of climate change in affecting temperature

Scientists at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in their global briefing this year that climate change has made deadly heatwaves "more frequent and more intense over most land areas since the 1950s."

This month's heatwaves are "not one phenomenon, but rather several at work at the same time," said Robert Vautard, director of the Pierre Simon Laplace Climate Institute in France. But they are all fueled by one factor: climate change.

Rising global temperatures make heat waves longer and more intense. Despite being the main driver, climate change is one of the variables that humans can influence by reducing emissions from fossil fuels.

"We are moving from the usual, well-known natural oscillations of climate into uncharted and more extreme territory," said Melissa Lazenby, Senior Lecturer in Climate Change at the University of Sussex.

"However, we do have the potential to limit our human impact on climate and weather and not create more extreme and prolonged heat waves."

Temperature forecast for next year

Berkeley Earth has warned that the current El Niño phenomenon could make Earth much hotter in 2024.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said heatwaves may become more frequent and intense, although governments can limit climate change by reducing countries' greenhouse gas emissions.

"This is just the beginning," said Simon Lewis, Chair of Global Change Science at University College London. “Deep, rapid and sustainable reductions of carbon emissions to net zero can halt warming, but humanity will have to adapt to future extreme heatwaves.”

Sources:

www.sciencealert.com