Will 2024 be hotter than 2023?
What a year 2023 was - as far as global temperature goes. A record-breaker for reasons that no one quite understands. Looking at the results of the Net Zero Watch poll taken late in 2022 to predict the annual average global temperature for 2023 I have to say you all did rather badly, for understandable reasons. But don’t worry - everybody else did badly, especially the UK Met Office.
Fig 1: Met Office prediction for 2023
Fig 2 below shows the Met Office predictions since 2000, along with actual annual temperatures. Fig 3 shows the residuals (note the numbers refer to the datacount not years) revealing that in general, years are slightly warmer than the Met Office usually predicts, though not by much. It also shows just how out of the ordinary, and how out of kilter with climate models last year was.
Fig 2. Blue: Met Office predictions - Orange: actual temperature
Just how unexpected the temperature of the latter part of 2023 was can be judged by the prediction by Prof Adam Scaife, head of Long-range Prediction at the Met Office, who said at the end of 2022:
Without a preceding El Niño to boost global temperature, 2023 may not be a record-breaking year, but with the background increase in global greenhouse gas emissions continuing apace it is likely that next year will be another notable year in the series.”
Fig 3. Met Office prediction residuals
That 2023 was so much warmer than the climate models predicted is not, as has been claimed, a stark indication that things are much worse than scientists had envisaged. Rather it is a reassertion that natural variability is still a force to be reckoned with and that climate models are, in this respect, not as good as many make out.
But as you prepare to cast your vote on the temperature of 2024, bear this in mind. Current indications are that the El Nino that boosted temperatures last year seems have peaked, with estimates that neutral conditions will resume by the years’ end. Also the factors driving natural variability that made 2023 so notable may, or may not, continue.
In the face of such uncertainties the Met Office predicts that 2024 will have the same temperature as 2023. Myself, I think it won’t be, but who knows?
Feedback: david.whitehouse@netzerowatch.com