Record-Breaking Heat Puzzles Climate Scientists

AFP/APP

Paris: The planet has been warming steadily for decades, driven largely by human activities, but an extraordinary and unprecedented surge in global heat over the past two years has left scientists scrambling for answers.

Temperature records have been repeatedly shattered since mid-2023, sending the climate system into uncharted territory. The heat streak is so persistent and intense that it challenges existing scientific predictions about climate dynamics.

While the consensus remains clear that burning fossil fuels is the primary driver of long-term global warming, experts are exploring additional factors that may have contributed to this extreme heat surge.

Changes in cloud patterns, airborne pollution, and the Earth’s carbon storage capacity are among the theories under consideration, though it may take years to fully understand the phenomenon.

“Head-and-Shoulders Above Any Other Year”

Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, described the warming in 2023 and 2024 as “head-and-shoulders above any other year.” Schmidt admitted, “I wish I knew why, but I don’t. We’re still assessing if we are seeing a shift in how the climate system operates.”

Fossil fuel emissions reached record highs in 2023, driving up greenhouse gas concentrations that trap heat near the Earth’s surface.

As a result, global air and sea surface temperatures have risen sharply, leading to both 2023 and 2024 being declared the hottest years on record, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

A Climate Mystery

While the long-term trend of global warming is consistent with scientific models, the intensity and persistence of the recent heatwave are pushing the boundaries of understanding.

Climate variability, such as the transition from a rare three-year La Nina event to a warming El Nino in mid-2023, played a role in boosting global temperatures.

However, the heat has lingered even after El Nino peaked, with November 2024 recording the second-warmest temperatures ever observed.

Sonia Seneviratne, a climatologist from ETH Zurich, noted, “The overall long-term warming tendency is not unexpected, but the extreme warmth of the past two years is at the limits of what we would expect from existing models.”

Urgent Need for Answers

Scientists acknowledge the need for further investigation. “If temperatures do not drop more sharply in 2025, we will really have to ask ourselves questions about the cause,” warned Robert Vautard, a member of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

As the world continues to burn fossil fuels at record levels, the effects of climate change are becoming more unpredictable, posing unprecedented challenges to scientists and policymakers alike.