January 2024 Warmest Global January On Record; February Likely Same; Heat Records Span Planet, Penetrate Oceans

LInks at original.

After last year was the warmest on record, 2024 is already off to a ripping hot start. January 2024 was the warmest January ever measured, and February is likely to follow.

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Many parts of the world are experiencing unprecedented heat — both in the Southern Hemisphere, where it’s summer, and in the Northern Hemisphere, where it’s winter. The list of countries is varied and far-reaching: Japan, Kenya, Nigeria, Brazil, Thailand, Australia, and Spain have all experienced extreme or record-breaking temperatures in the past few weeks. The US, which experienced a bitter cold snap across much of the country in January, is now setting new highs in the Midwest and the South. Wildfires have ignited in Texas, Colorado, and Nebraska, sending smoke plumes toward the East Coast. There are even wildfires burning underground in Canada that initially erupted during the record-wildfire season last year.

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It’s been a searingly hot summer south of the equator, and the region also had an unusually warm winter. Cities like Buenos Aires, Argentina, saw their hottest winter months in more than a century. In Australia, it was the hottest winter ever recorded. The Southern Hemisphere has some different dynamics from the Northern Hemisphere. The big one is that there is proportionately more ocean than land in the south. Oceans absorb heat and act as buffers against big temperature swings, so winters usually don’t get too chilly and summers don’t often reach sweltering levels. But the world’s oceans have been unusually warm since last year, and that’s helped maintain warm air over land masses in the Southern Hemisphere. And South America in particular is in the line of fire for El Niño. The region has already experienced both extensive flooding and drought fueled by warmer water off the Pacific coast, leading to shifting rainfall patterns.

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The world’s oceans near the equator right now remain at record high temperatures. Water temperatures have topped 90 degrees Fahrenheit in regions like the Caribbean. In addition to absorbing heat, oceans soak up close to 30 percent of humanity’s carbon dioxide emissions. The combination of higher temperatures and more carbon dioxide is changing the chemistry of the water. In recent months, this has threatened fragile ecosystems like coral reefs. Off the Florida Keys, corals suffered mass bleaching events and die-offs driven by marine heat waves. The warm waters have reached as far south as Antarctica, which saw a record low extent of sea ice last year. As summer has picked up, sea ice around the southern continent is no longer at absolute record low levels but still far below what’s typical.

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https://www.vox.com/24084753/winter-heat-wave-2024-temperature-us-wildfire-flood-chile-warming