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Dr. Zeke Hausfather

@hausfath

11 Jan

Ocean heat content is our best measure of the impact of human activity on the climate; >90% of all heat trapped by greenhouse gases is absorbed by the oceans.

In 2021, we saw the warmest ocean heat content since records began, >400 billion trillion joules higher than the 1940s.

@Lijing_Cheng

This is from the newly released dataset by @Lijing_Cheng and the Institute for Atmospheric Physics, though NOAA's ocean heat content record shows similar results: link.springer.com/article/10.100…

@CarbonBrief

For more details on surface and atmospheric temperatures, ocean heat, sea level rise, atmospheric GHGs, sea ice, and other climate indicators in 2021 see our @CarbonBrief state of the climate analysis coming out in the next few days.

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Dr. Zeke Hausfather

@hausfath

10 Jan

@rahmstorf

El Nino and La Nina (ENSO) are main drivers of year-to-year variability in global temperatures, on top of the long-term human-caused warming trend.

Here is what happens if we use statistics (following @rahmstorf and Forster 2011) to remove their effects from @CopernicusECMWF:

And here is what the recorded temperatures (red) look like compared to these ENSO-removed variants:

Its interesting (and somewhat coincidental) that 2021 still ends up as the 5th warmest year even when ENSO effects are removed, but its much closer to the past few years, and the long-term warming trend even clearer without ENSO.

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Dr. Zeke Hausfather

@hausfath

7 Jan

With 2021 annual temperatures (nearly) in, its time for my first prediction of where 2022 will end up!

I find that 2022 is most likely to be the 6th warmest on record, with a very small chance of being the warmest year on record and a small chance of below the 8th warmest.

This uses GISTEMP, and is based on a multivariate regression model using the prior year, past three months, and El Nino/La Nina (ENSO) conditions for the past 6 months and the ENSO forecast for the next 6 months. Here is how it does for past years (red forecast, blue actual):

Note that I'm estimating December 2021 temperature for GISTEMP for this analysis based on the difference between November 2021 and December 2021 temperatures in ERA5 (which has already reported its December numbers).

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Dr. Zeke Hausfather

@hausfath

4 Jan

@CopernicusECMWF

The first official 2021 global surface temperature results are now out from @CopernicusECMWF.

2021 was the 5th warmest year on record in their dataset. It was a bit cooler than the past few years due to a moderate La Nina event, but well in-line with the long-term warming trend

2021 was effectively tied with 2018 and 2015 in ERA5, and will likely end up between 5th and 7th warmest in all the surface temperature datasets once they are out. Data through December for both the global and Europe can be found here: climate.copernicus.eu/sites/default/…

@neiltyson

Global temperatures are strong effected by El Nino and La Nina events, which is the primary driver of year-to-year variability on top of the long-term human-caused warming trend. You can think of it as a man walking a dog on the beach, as @neiltyson illustrated in @COSMOSonTV:

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Dr. Zeke Hausfather

@hausfath

2 Jan

Germany and the UK both lead the world in renewables, representing 40% of their electricity in 2020.

But UK electricity emissions have fallen 70% since 1990, while Germany's have only fallen by 50%. UK has prioritized replacing coal, while Germany has shut down nuclear first.

This graph also exaggerates progress a bit given the anomalous nature of 2020; here is what it looks like if we just examine emissions through the (pre-pandemic) 2019.

Today Germany closed 3 of its remaining 6 nuclear reactors. Regardless of what you think of the economic viability of new nuclear reactors, closing down existing plants ahead of coal is hard to square with the idea of treating climate change like a crisis.

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Dr. Zeke Hausfather

@hausfath

23 Dec 21

@jtemple

Some cautious climate optimism to end the year from @jtemple in @techreview. We are still far from meeting Paris goals, but the pace of replacing fossil fuels with clean energy has dramatically accelerated in recent years. technologyreview.com/2021/12/23/104…

A decade ago the world appeared on track for a hellish 4C or 5C warming. Today climate policy and technology have flattened that down to around 2.7C (2C-3.6C). carbonbrief.org/analysis-do-co…

This is still a potentially dire future for many human and natural systems – and uncertainties in the climate response to our emissions are decidedly not our friend! – but its much easier to see a path forward to well-below 2C than it was a decade ago.

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