- French mayor sorry for 'no one died' remark over mass rape trial
- Mohamed Al-Fayed, outsider shunned by British high society
- Lawyers say 'monster' late Harrods owner abused dozens of women
- India in box seat after Bumrah takes four against Bangladesh
- Taiwan retains death penalty but limits use to 'exceptional' cases
- Ferrari's Leclerc sets early pace in Singapore ahead of Norris
- 10 years into Huthi rule, some Yemenis count the cost
- France poised to finally get new govt
- Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson doubtful for Bournemouth clash
- Bayern's Kompany calls for game cap for players amid strike talks
- Christie's expands Hong Kong footprint in hope of art market 'pickup'
- Sultry screen legend Sophia Loren turns 90
- Cambodian opposition figure in court on incitement charge
- Kimchi threat as heatwave drives up South Korea cabbage prices
- UK economic data delivers fresh blow to new govt
- China to 'gradually resume' seafood imports from Japan after Fukushima ban
- India minister blames dam release for flooding
- O'Rourke strikes early for Kiwis as Sri Lanka trail by three
- Israel pounds Lebanon's Hezbollah after device blasts
- Revolution or mirage? Controversy surrounds new Alzheimer's drugs
- Ashwin's 113 powers India to 376 in Bangladesh Test
- Biden opens home to 'Quad' leaders for farewell summit
- Sally Rooney returns with 30-something questions
- Wallabies sense 'massive' chance to upset All Blacks
- Taiwan questions two in probe into Hezbollah pagers
- Viral Korean Olympic shooter scores first acting role as assassin
- Farrell set for 'challenge' of downing Bordeaux in Top 14
- Springbok Etzebeth diverts attention from looming caps record
- Inter on a high ahead of Milan derby as Napoli face Juve test
- Bank of Japan leaves key interest rate unchanged
- Asian markets track Wall Street record to extend global rally
- Guirassy and Anton to return to Stuttgart with new side Dortmund
- Marseille bidding to continue 'almost perfect' Ligue 1 start
- Arnold quits as coach of Australia men's football team
- Harris and Oprah hold star-studded US election rally
- Allies to remember failed WWII parachute operation
- Perez leading new-look Villarreal charge against leaders Barca
- Man City face Arsenal in Premier League title showdown, Postecoglou under pressure
- Fake celebrity endorsements, snubs plague US presidential race
- Documentary brings Argentine 'death flights' to the big screen
- Strike shows challenge to Boeing 'reset' of labor relations
- World leaders to gather at UN as crises grow and conflicts rage
- How plastic pollution poses challenge for Canada marine conservation
- Scientists track plastic waste in pristine Canada marine park
- South Africa's Buhai grabs LPGA Queen City lead
- Japan inflation firms to 2.8% ahead of BoJ rate decision
- Russia's Kadyrov accuses Musk of 'remotely disabling' his Cybertruck
- Titan sub had to abort a dive days before fatal implosion: testimony
- Ohtani eyes MLB history after surpassing 50 stolen bases
- Barca downed by Monaco as Arsenal held in Champions League stalemate
2023's record heat partly driven by 'mystery' process: NASA scientist
It's no secret human activity is warming the planet, driving more frequent and intense extreme weather events and transforming ecosystems at an extraordinary rate.
But the record-shattering temperatures of 2023 have nonetheless alarmed scientists, and hint at some "mysterious" new processes that may be under way, NASA's top climatologist Gavin Schmidt tells AFP.
The following are excerpts from an interview with Schmidt:
- Can you put what we saw in 2023 into perspective? -
It wasn't just a record. It was a record that broke the previous record by a record margin.
We started with La Nina, this cool phenomenon in the tropical Pacific. That was still around until March. And then in May, we started to see the development of an El Nino, the warm phase of that cycle.
It normally affects the temperatures in the following year. So that would be 2024. But what we saw in 2023 was that the temperatures globally seemed to go up with the El Nino event, in a much greater way than we'd ever seen it before.
The long term trends we understand, and it's being driven by the greenhouse gases, it's being driven by anthropogenic effects. We're expecting that to continue, decade by decade, until we stop emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which we haven't done yet.
But what happened in 2023 was that, and then plus something. And that 'plus something' is much larger than we expect, or as yet can explain.
- What are the leading hypotheses for that 'plus something'? -
There have been emails and conversations going on around the world, among the scientists who are looking at this, and people say, 'Oh, let's look at the Earth's energy imbalances. Let's look at the aerosols, let's look at the El Nino, at what's happening in the Antarctic, in the North Atlantic.' And everybody has lots of ideas, but it doesn't quite add up.
It may be that El Nino is enough. But if I look at all of the other El Ninos that we've had, none of them did this. So either this El Nino is really super special, or the atmosphere is responding to this El Nino in a very special way. Or there's something else going on. And nobody has yet really narrowed these possibilities.
That long-term trend is still within the bounds of what we've been predicting for many years. But the specifics of what happened in 2023 are a little mysterious.
- What should we expect for 2024? -
It matters why 2023 was the way it was, because does that mean it's going to continue? Does that mean the impacts are going to start to accelerate? We don't know! And that's problematic.
2023 did not follow the old patterns. If the old patterns come back, and 2023 was just a blip, then 2024 will be very close to 2023. If it's not a blip, if it's something systematic that's changed, or that's changing, then you would expect 2024 to actually be warmer. Because you have the warmth that you would expect, and then there's this extra thing.
And that has implications for the weather, and heat waves, and intense rainfall, and coastal flooding, and all the rest of it, that we can expect this year.
E.Borba--PC