Record January warmth puzzles #climate scientists
by Mark Poynting, February 5, 2025
"Last month was the world's warmest January on record raising further questions about the pace of climate change, scientists say.
"January 2025 had been expected to be slightly cooler than January 2024 because of a shift away from a natural weather pattern in the Pacific known as #ElNiño.
"But instead, last month broke the January 2024 record by nearly 0.1C, according to the European @CopernicusEU climate service.
"The world's warming is due to emissions of planet-heating gases from human activities - mainly the burning of #FossilFuels - but scientists say they cannot fully explain why last month was particularly hot.
"It continues a series of surprisingly large temperature records since mid-2023, with temperatures around 0.2C above what had been expected.
[...]
"January 2025 ended up 1.75C warmer than January temperatures of the late 19th Century, before humans started significantly warming the climate.
"Early last year, global temperatures were being boosted by the natural El Niño weather pattern, where unusually warm surface waters spread across the eastern tropical Pacific. This releases extra heat into the atmosphere, raising global temperatures.
"This year, #LaNiña conditions are developing instead, according to US science group Noaa, which should have the opposite effect.
"While La Niña is currently weak - and sometimes takes a couple of months to have its full effect on temperatures – it was expected to lead to a cooler January.
"'If you'd asked me a few months ago what January 2025 would look like relative to January 2024, my best shot would have been it would be cooler,' Adam Scaife, head of monthly to decadal predictions at the UK Met Office, said.
"'We now know it isn't, and we don't really know why that is.'"
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyjk92w9k1o?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us
#ClimateCrisis #WorldWx #Climate #GlobalWarming
