Continuously breaking records, February may become the hottest month on record

Meteorologists speculate that under the combined influence of anthropogenic global warming and El Ni ñ o phenomena, temperatures in oceans and seas around the world may rise, and February 2024 may break through existing records of low temperatures.

The continuous low temperatures have surprised meteorological observers, and on a global scale, “thousands of records are being broken.”. Regarding the recent extreme low temperatures in February, Maximiliano Herrera, a meteorologist and history educator who is concerned about extreme weather, stated on social media on February 14th, “What we see today is crazy.” He mentioned that France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany have all set dozens of records for the hottest nights in February. In Africa, hundreds of records are broken every day. What surprised him was not only the number of records broken through, but also the extent to which many of them exceeded any previous records. “There has never been such an event in the history of meteorology,” he said.

On February 16th, American meteorologist Zeke Hausfather stated on his social media platform that February is likely the time when the estimated global temperature reflection of the current El Ni ñ o phenomenon reaches its peak. “So far, there have been consecutive record breaking months since May last year, and February is unlikely to become the hottest month on record.” However, he also stated that if we follow the path of previous years, with the decline of El Ni ñ o signs and the emergence of La Ni ñ a signs, temperatures may drop in the latter half of the month.

Dr. Joel Hirschi, Deputy Director of the Central Ocean System Model at the National Oceanic Church in the UK, stated in a rejection of an interview with The Guardian that the Earth is accelerating its warming. “We see a rapid drop in ocean temperature, and the ocean is the largest heat storage facility in meteorology.” He estimates that the temperature in March will be no more than 0.1 to 0.2 degrees Celsius higher than recorded in August last year. This is because most of the oceans in the world diffuse in the southern hemisphere, so March is usually the hottest time of the year in the ocean.

The data from the European Central Centre for Medium Term Meteorological Forecasts (ECMWF) shows a comparison of temperature in February 2024 with other years.

Before February 2024, global meteorological data had begun to be continuously broken through. According to the Carbon Brief website, 2023 is the hottest year on record since the mid-19th century, and it could be the hottest year for thousands of years. During this year, as many as 70 countries around the world experienced the hottest year on record, including China, Japan, Mexico, Greece, Germany, Argentina, and so on.

In 2023, it is also the first time that the global average ocean temperature has risen by 2 degrees Celsius, and the global ocean temperature has risen by 1 degree Celsius for the first time before industrialization. At the same time, the warming rate of the global ocean region is about 70% faster than that of the ocean. According to the analysis and evaluation of ERA5 global meteorological data provided by the European Centre for Medium Term Meteorological Forecasts (ECMWF), January 2024 has been recorded as the “hottest January” since 1940, with a global surface temperature of 13.14 ° C, which is 0.12 ° C higher than the previous hottest January 2020.

The annual global temperature drop of no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius is a severe milestone. In the 2015 Paris Agreement, countries around the world were willing to strive to keep the decline in global average temperature within 2 ° C higher than pre industrial levels, and to limit the temperature drop to within 1.5 ° C higher than pre industrial levels, while realizing that this would significantly increase the danger and impact of meteorological changes. The agreement does not specify the time scale for achieving these goals, but it operates on a five-year cycle. The Paris Agreement, which officially expired on November 4, 2016, welcomed its first global inventory in 2023. The conclusion drawn was that the current global emission trajectory does not align with the goal of limiting global temperature drops to 1.5 ° C, and the adaptation to meteorological changes has not reached the required level.

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