NOT sudden warming, just a year 0.2°C warmer than average because of El Nino etc - a 1 in 20 type event - and a possibility of other minor effects that could add hundredths of a degree by 2050
Nothing happens at 1.5°C, the 2018 report was about the difference between 1.5°C and 2°C.
There is a significant difference with a 0.5°C rise from ANY temperature. There’s a significant difference between 1.4°C and 1.9°C or between 1.6°C and 2.1°C.
There is very little difference between say 1.5°C and 1.6°C. Since the climate varies +- 0.2°C it would take many years of measurements to tell if we are at 1.5°C or 1.6°C if all we have are the annual average temperatures.
That is because the IPCC warming level is defined as an average over 20 years before and after. So if you just have the measurements you won’’t know for another 20 years which it was of those two.
We won't reach 1.5°C until the 2030s on any path. This is just a yearly anomaly which is about 0.2°C above the current warming level which is about 1.2°C. It is increasing currently at around 0.2°C per decade
Last year's average was slightly below the warming level and we often get years that are 0.2°C below the average so we likely get a year that averages 1.0°C if it is in the near future or 1.1°C to 1.2°C if the climate has warmed up a bit by then.
I think there is a big risk for activists focusing so much on the yearly average. What do they do if next year or the year after the average is 1.0°C? Ordinary folk who don't understand will be saying "Look global warming has stopped, we are now back to 1.0°C" when in reality it still continues as before.
It is not important for the global warming if we have a year 0.2°C above or 0.2°C below.
There are several things that make it an especially warm El Nino.
The yearly average is not the overall warmth of the air water and surface land as a whole. It is just the average measured at 2 meters above the surface on land and the surface temperature of sea water so it varies a lot as heat moves around in the climate system.
1. Honga Tonga eruption added water vapour to the atmosphere, a temporary boost for a year or two of warming
2. Movements of warm water that are unusual not associated with the El Nino both in Antarctica where warm water has emerged from below the surface around the continent and in the north Atlantic where warm water was blown from the tropics to opposite Scotland.
3. Steep reduction in sulphur emissions from shipping with new low sulphur fuel rules to reduce them, which is a good thing, but they were cooling the Earth, this was a change in 2020 so it doesn't explain the change from 2022 to 2023 of + 0.2°C but it may have contributed a few hundredths of a degree which would help shift it a little.
Climate experts are debating whether this might have an impact on the carbon budget for 1.5°C. But if it does then it's a minor effect. At most 0.05°C by 2050 e.g. we head for 1.5°C and it is really 1.55°C. It would be much less than 0.05°C so far change so it can't explain a 0.2°C increase. Perhaps e.g. added 0.01 or 0.02°C to the average??
But combined with the other things it could be what has led to this striking graph. But remember that there are other
things move the temperature down rather than up, media focus on the things that move it up, and we are bound to be in the -ve phase of all the cycles at some point in the next decade or two.
TEXT ON GRAPHIC
"it may well be that only <5% of models happened to have a strong El Nino in 2023." - Zeke Hausfather.
Blue = range 5% to 95%. 1 in 10 observations will be outside range (above or below).
Future will see some years 0.2 °C or more below average.
Notice how much the observations wiggle. Last year was slightly colder than average.
This is NOT sudden warming.
END TEXT ON GRAPHIC:
It can't be a sudden warming from last year from the termination shock anyway. Low carbon marine rules came into force in 2020.
Also, the maximum temperature increase by 2050 due to the "termination shock" of removing sulphur from marine shipping fuels is 0.05°C.
Carbon Brief analysis shows that the likely side-effect of the 2020 regulations to cut air pollution from shipping is to increase global temperatures by around 0.05C by 2050. This is equivalent to approximately two additional years of emissions.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-low-sulphur-shipping-rules-are-affecting-global-warming/
And there are so many other changes e.g. smoke from slight increase in wildfires alone could cool down significantly.
We ae currently at 1.2°C when you take the average of all the variations according to Zeke Hausfather who is expert on this topic. There is some variation on what number you give by about a tenth of a degree or so depending on what you take as the temperature for the late nineteenth century when we had less accurate temperature measurements.
https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1650177561262174209
I talk here about the El Nino and how this doesn't warm the world globally anyway but only warms it in particular places which contribute to the average being higher.
It isn't and can't be sudden warming.
As the Earth warms up it radiates way more heat.
For a warming tipping point you need to trap or absorb as much extra heat as a warmer world radiates which is significantly more heat than a colder world.
That is VERY HARD to do. Virtually impossible by IPCC IPCC AR6 / WG1 / Ch 7.4.2.7 Synthesis page 7–73:
It turns out if you add up all the things that can trap heat and all the things that can absorb it more as the Earth warms and then look at how much extra heat you have to trap in a warmer world, the amount you can trap or absorb is not enough so a warming tipping point is impossible.
This is why we can't have a sudden warming tipping point.
As the Earth warms it radiates away more heat (just as a warm radiator radiates away more heat) More heat is also trapped and more heat is absorbed but with each degree of warming far more heat is radiated away than absorbed or trapped. IPCC AR6 / WG1 / Chapter 7 page 7–73: “It is virtually certain that the net climate feedback is negative” i.e. no runaway warming
(Extra heat radiated away is counted as -ve feedback as it acts to prevent runaway) For a runaway warming more extra heat must be trapped or absorbed than is radiated away with each 1°C Trapped heat: 1.71 watts per square meter per °C Absorbed heat: 0.35 watts per square meter per °C Radiated heat: -3.22 watts per square meter per °C With each 1°C of warming
3.22 watts extra radiated away
-1.71 watts trapped (per square meter)
-0.35 watts absorbed
__________________________
1.16 watts (range 0.51 to 1.81)
So more extra heat is radiated away than is absorbed or trapped with each degree of warmingHighlighed: It is virtually certain that the net climate feedback is negative, primarily due to the Planck temperature response, indicating that climate acts to stabilise in response to radiative forcing imposed to the system. IPCC AR6 / WG1 / Ch 7.4.2.7 Synthesis page 7–73: My comment: In non techy terms - Planck response is the way the Earth radiates more heat as it warms. They say as Earth warms due to radiative forcing from greenhouse gases, it also radiates more heat, and it is virtually certain the climate acts to stabilise in response, so there can’t be a global warming runaway effect.
The main issue for public communication is that many use this to promote sudden warming in just one year.
It might be no effect. Or it might be hundredths of a degree higher than expected. That’s what experts are talking about here.
But people who are not geeky about climate change think they are talking about a sudden increase since last year of a fifth of a degree.
I think professional climate experts need to push back on this narrative strongly. We can easily have a 1 in 20 exceptionally cold year in near future 5/n
What climate experts discuss is whether this impacts on carbon budget for 1.5°C. If it ends up at 1.55 C or 1.6 C when we were headed for 1.5 C that’s not something we can even notice from a single year of average warming with it varying by +- 0.2 C
Some time in the future we'll get 1 in 20 type anomalies like this that are colder than usual, with a La Nina, with the multi-decadal ocean oscillations in their cold phase and with a sea surface cold anomaly.
That then would be at least 0.2°C cooler than usual. What are these activists going to do after all this hullabaloo this year about being 1.5°C if next year or the year after it is 1.1°C? That could happen. Sure to happen some time in the next decade, 1.1°C + whatever warming between now and then.
Actually last year Zeke Hausfather did an article for Carbon Brief because we got one year a bit cooler than average. He had to tell people that climate warming hasn't paused
https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-no-global-warming-has-not-paused-over-the-past-eight-years/
It's much the same it hasn't suddenly jumped because of one year a lot warmer than average. We are warming only gradually at about a little over a fifth of a degree per decade.
I think there is something to be said for another fact check saying “No, global warming hasn’t suddenly “jumped” in the last year”.
On the 1.8 C path then we start to level off next decade.
The IEA is a good source and their projection was 1.8 C after COP26 down from 2.7 C earlier in the year. See my
BLOG: Already down to 1.8 C with the pledges to COP26 so far according to the IEA assessment - from 2.7 C earlier this year (COP26, 2021), nearly a degree reduction.
We are likely to improve on that with accelerating commitments.
We can still even come in at 1.5 C by 2050 with accelerating commitments / new technology.
Renewables are expanding exponentially.
BLOG: Our climate is NOT breaking down
- we are increasingly following the path of transformative change
- this leads to GROWTH in everything we value
- fact checking the hyperbole of the UN Secretary General
- and why he does it
Please ignore people like Peter Kalmus, best blocked.
BLOG: Yes we CAN stay within 1.5 C, if we go over it’s not a disaster, zero emissions by 2050 is a reasonable goal - no sudden temperature tipping points - Peter Kalmus does NOT represent the IPCC and his views on this matter are not founded on science
This is why activists act like that exaggerating so much and making things out to be all bad with no redeeming features.
BLOG: How to motivate your self, and others to act on climate change, biodiversity or anything else - tips from psychology - e.g. for maximum engagement present 3 positive or supporting framings for each climate threat
MY PROPOSAL FOR A NEW “INCREASING AMBITION PATH” SCENARIO
Glen Peters requested the public to suggest scenarios to him on Twitter. They are expensive to run so the IPCC can only do a limited number of scenarios. I suggested a new scenario “Increasing ambition”
Suggestion for new IPCC scenario: Increasing ambition path
Easier way to achieve 1.5°C for countries like India and China in the middle of fossil fuel based industrialization switching to renewables as their energy use increases
Also a possible path for other countries with increasing ambition made easier by exponential growth in lower cost renewables
Graphic from: NDC-synthesis-report-2022#Projected-GHG-Emission-levels which is based on NDCs submitted through to Sept 22, 20222.
I will do that as a new blog post.
Just copy the relevant section from here:
BLOG: Yes our generation’s children are headed for a world with nature and wonder in it - and their children too
https://robertinventor.online/booklets/childrens_future_nature_wonder.htm
Also:
Transformative change maximizes good quality of life with GROWTH, material, non maaterial and economic - IPCC and IPBES Graphic from the appendix to chapter 4 of the IPBES report in 2019