COLUMBIA, S.C. — “In the 20th and early 21st century it is a significant trend”
Greg Carbone is a professor from USC’s Geography department, he says that even though some warming was expected this year, our potential record-setting year is just a continuation of recent trends.
“You’re bound to have a few surprises in the exact year that it happens but, the trend, the forcing factors that are pushing the temperature are consistently increasing. That’s the greenhouse gasses increasing over the past few decades are pushing things in a very particular direction.”
Global oceans are playing a big role in what we are seeing this year. El Nino adds a lot of warmth to a large area of the Pacific, meanwhile, other global cycles are heating things up in the Atlantic.
Looking at our poles, global sea ice is also at a modern-day low. While these areas are very far from the most in the U.S. they can serve as a warning for future impacts we could see.
“The sea ice trend is a little bit of a canary in a coal mine situation for us. It is happening ahead of the long-term change we are seeing for the entire planet.”
October continues to run well above average and 2023 is shaping up to be one of the warmest years in the modern climate record.
While you might not see specific changes this year locally, it does change how easy it is to forecast weather and long-term patterns as we add more unknowns into the equation.
“The weather we have experienced recently we have large daily fluctuations in temperature, so one or two degrees doesn’t seem like very much. But, when you think about a trend of average global temperatures that are exceeding one or two degrees over the course of a century, that is a significant energy budget change. It is likely to manifest into the upcoming decade.”