No global warming surge or hiatus, say researchers
Global mean surface temperature is widely used to monitor climate change and there is still much debate about whether there are indications of standstills or surges in global temperature. There are certainly many peer-reviewed papers – on both sides of the debate – about the reality of the circa 2000–14 so-called ‘hiatus’.
A recent survey of global surface temperature records, however, concludes that the world has been warming at a steady rate since the 1970s, with no statistically significant sign of any change in the warming rate. Professor Beaulieu of Princeton University, the lead author of the research, published in the journal Nature Communications, told NetZeroWatch, ‘to be clear, our analysis demonstrates the ongoing warming…however, if there's an recent acceleration in global warming, we can’t statistically detect it yet.’
How not to analyse temperature trends say the scientists.
The researchers examined four global mean surface temperature records over 1850–2023 and found no change in the warming rate beyond the 1970s, despite the record-breaking temperatures observed in 2023.
2023: an abnormal year
The recent El Niño has been suggested as a cause for the abnormal spike in global temperatures in 2023 – the average global temperature was about 0.3 degrees above 2022.
Nobody has yet provided an adequate explanation as to why it was so hot. Some suggested it was due to more sunlight reaching the ocean surface after pollution from ship’s fuels were cleaned up. Others have suggested it might be an example of some factor unaccounted for in climate models.
This new research suggests that the warmth was a rebound after the recent La Niña suppressed global temperatures between 2020 and 2022. Researchers looked for past evidence of a prolonged La Niña induced surge and found some evidence for it, especially in 1976. Whilst interesting, this is clearly not the full story about the heat of 2023. It came on much faster and was more intense than in normal El Niño years. It also lasted much longer.
Finally, a reminder that despite the lurid headlines there is no evidence that tropical storms are getting worse because of climate change, despite a recent report claiming that Hurricane Helene, which recently ravaged Florida, was made hundreds of times more likely by human-caused climate change. This is the conclusion from an analysis posted on the World Weather Attribution Initiative website. It is an opinion and not yet peer-reviewed.
According to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, there is no strong evidence of century-scale increases in the strength of hurricanes, despite the steady increase in global temperature seen over the past 50 years as detailed earlier in this article.