Melbourne, Fossil fuels have kept the Earth 1.5°C warmer than its pre-industrial average temperature for more than a year.
And yet, where I live in the UK, I have found this summer to be one of the coolest I can remember. If the planet is in the midst of “a large and continuing shift” toward a warmer climate as scientists say, why is the climate so cold during what is supposed to be the warmest time of the year?
Satisfactory answers to questions like this can nip climate skepticism in the bud. Fortunately, the experts we'll talk about today have a lot. Matthew Patterson is an atmospheric physicist at the University of Reading. He says the UK's gloomy summer has not been unusually cold; in fact, measurements of temperature, sunlight, and precipitation in June 2024 were close to their seasonal averages.
Unfortunately, “normal” conditions now seem colder than before.
Everything cold is new again. Europe has warmed at about twice the global average rate since the 1970s, while extreme summer temperatures have risen even faster. The UK has had its five hottest days since 1910 in the last five years.
"Such a rapid rate of warming means that we have come to normalize extreme heat, while relatively cool or even average conditions seem unusual and therefore newsworthy," says Patterson.
Patterson maintains that people quickly forget what the weather felt like even in the recent past. And of course, we have no reference to what he was like before he was born. Environmentalists refer to this phenomenon as shifting baseline syndrome: each new generation comes to accept as normal what previous generations would have considered extreme. A rapidly warming climate will continue to produce an extremely cold climate. It's winter in South Australia and the weather there has been unusually cold according to Andrew King, senior lecturer in climate science at the University of Queensland:
"Notably, Tasmania has had the lowest temperature on record for July and the second lowest minimum temperature for any time of year with -13.5C at Liawenee in central Tasmania early Thursday morning."
Despite the cold snap, winters in Australia remain warm. The frosty nights and cold days of recent weeks have become rarer and less intense in recent decades. Australia has set heat records much more regularly during that time. But when the right weather conditions are in place, local cold records can still be broken. Instead of fixating on these times, it's important to track the average.
"While we still see record cold temperatures at individual weather stations, we won't see another record cold in the global average temperature and probably not even the Australian average temperature," says King.
Bland or frightening It is not difficult to find a climate that seems more typical of global warming at a dangerous level. When temperatures reached 50°C in Saudi Arabia in mid-June, more than 1,000 people performing the Hajj pilgrimage collapsed and died.
“I estimated I walked about 80 miles (129 kilometers) during my pilgrimage,” says Ahmet T. Kuru, director of the Center for Islamic and Arabic Studies at San Diego State University. "This year's extreme heat added to the challenge."
Similar temperatures were recently recorded in the southwestern United States. One person died and another was hospitalized on Sunday when the mercury hit 53.9°C in Nevada's Death Valley National Park. Hospitals in Karachi, Pakistan, have been overwhelmed by weeks of intense heat. Temperatures near 38C killed several people in Greece last month and more than half of Japan's prefectures have issued heatstroke alerts in recent days.
The news that the Earth's average temperature has exceeded 1.5°C warming for an entire year is alarming even if your area has not yet experienced deadly heat. Here are UMass Lowell climate scientists Mathew Barlow and Jeffrey Basara:
“In the Paris climate agreement, countries around the world agreed to work to keep global warming below 1.5°C, however that refers to the average temperature change over a 30-year period. A 30-year average is used to limit the influence of natural fluctuations from year to year. “So far, the Earth has only crossed that threshold for one year. However, it remains extremely worrying and the world appears to be on track to cross the 30-year average threshold of 1.5°C within ten years.”
This is the first time humanity has tasted what scientists would consider truly dangerous global climate change. But you can only feel the weather in a single place in time. As Barlow and Basara explain, that varies greatly from day to day, week to week, month to month, and year to year.
While the global average temperature is steadily rising, your partial experience (wherever you are in the world) can be bland or frightening. Once the world's weather stations have weighed in, the summer of 2024 will likely be declared the coldest. hottest ever recorded. It is also certain that it will be among the coldest of the rest of your life. (The conversation) NSA
NSA
And yet, where I live in the UK, I have found this summer to be one of the coolest I can remember. If the planet is in the midst of “a large and continuing shift” toward a warmer climate as scientists say, why is the climate so cold during what is supposed to be the warmest time of the year?
Satisfactory answers to questions like this can nip climate skepticism in the bud. Fortunately, the experts we'll talk about today have a lot. Matthew Patterson is an atmospheric physicist at the University of Reading. He says the UK's gloomy summer has not been unusually cold; in fact, measurements of temperature, sunlight, and precipitation in June 2024 were close to their seasonal averages.
Unfortunately, “normal” conditions now seem colder than before.
Everything cold is new again. Europe has warmed at about twice the global average rate since the 1970s, while extreme summer temperatures have risen even faster. The UK has had its five hottest days since 1910 in the last five years.
"Such a rapid rate of warming means that we have come to normalize extreme heat, while relatively cool or even average conditions seem unusual and therefore newsworthy," says Patterson.
Patterson maintains that people quickly forget what the weather felt like even in the recent past. And of course, we have no reference to what he was like before he was born. Environmentalists refer to this phenomenon as shifting baseline syndrome: each new generation comes to accept as normal what previous generations would have considered extreme. A rapidly warming climate will continue to produce an extremely cold climate. It's winter in South Australia and the weather there has been unusually cold according to Andrew King, senior lecturer in climate science at the University of Queensland:
"Notably, Tasmania has had the lowest temperature on record for July and the second lowest minimum temperature for any time of year with -13.5C at Liawenee in central Tasmania early Thursday morning."
Despite the cold snap, winters in Australia remain warm. The frosty nights and cold days of recent weeks have become rarer and less intense in recent decades. Australia has set heat records much more regularly during that time. But when the right weather conditions are in place, local cold records can still be broken. Instead of fixating on these times, it's important to track the average.
"While we still see record cold temperatures at individual weather stations, we won't see another record cold in the global average temperature and probably not even the Australian average temperature," says King.
Bland or frightening It is not difficult to find a climate that seems more typical of global warming at a dangerous level. When temperatures reached 50°C in Saudi Arabia in mid-June, more than 1,000 people performing the Hajj pilgrimage collapsed and died.
“I estimated I walked about 80 miles (129 kilometers) during my pilgrimage,” says Ahmet T. Kuru, director of the Center for Islamic and Arabic Studies at San Diego State University. "This year's extreme heat added to the challenge."
Similar temperatures were recently recorded in the southwestern United States. One person died and another was hospitalized on Sunday when the mercury hit 53.9°C in Nevada's Death Valley National Park. Hospitals in Karachi, Pakistan, have been overwhelmed by weeks of intense heat. Temperatures near 38C killed several people in Greece last month and more than half of Japan's prefectures have issued heatstroke alerts in recent days.
The news that the Earth's average temperature has exceeded 1.5°C warming for an entire year is alarming even if your area has not yet experienced deadly heat. Here are UMass Lowell climate scientists Mathew Barlow and Jeffrey Basara:
“In the Paris climate agreement, countries around the world agreed to work to keep global warming below 1.5°C, however that refers to the average temperature change over a 30-year period. A 30-year average is used to limit the influence of natural fluctuations from year to year. “So far, the Earth has only crossed that threshold for one year. However, it remains extremely worrying and the world appears to be on track to cross the 30-year average threshold of 1.5°C within ten years.”
This is the first time humanity has tasted what scientists would consider truly dangerous global climate change. But you can only feel the weather in a single place in time. As Barlow and Basara explain, that varies greatly from day to day, week to week, month to month, and year to year.
While the global average temperature is steadily rising, your partial experience (wherever you are in the world) can be bland or frightening. Once the world's weather stations have weighed in, the summer of 2024 will likely be declared the coldest. hottest ever recorded. It is also certain that it will be among the coldest of the rest of your life. (The conversation) NSA
NSA
