June extremes suggest parts of the climate system are reaching tipping points

June extremes suggest parts of the climate system are reaching tipping points

Inside Climate News reports:

June 2023 may be remembered as the start of a big change in the climate system, with many key global indicators flashing red warning lights amid signs that some systems are tipping toward a new state from which they may not recover.

Earth’s critical reflective polar ice caps are at their lowest extent on record in the satellite era, with the sea ice around Antarctica at a record-low extent by far, spurring worried scientists to share dramatic charts of the missing ice repeatedly. In the Arctic, the month ended with the Greenland Ice Sheet experiencing one of the largest June melt events ever recorded, and with scientists reporting that June 2023 was the hottest June ever measured, breaking the 2019 record by a “staggering” 0.16 degrees Celsius.


“With the record warmth in June, 2023 as a whole is now the odds-on favorite to be the warmest year on record,” climate scientist Zeke Hausfather wrote on Twitter.

Globally, the oceans set records for warmth on the surface and down to more than 6,000 feet deep throughout the month, with temperatures so far above the norm that the conditions elicited more graphs showing the anomaly. They’ve been shared thousands of times by scientists, policymakers and the public. And in Canada, forest areas about the size of Kentucky have burned, choking huge swaths of central and eastern North America with acrid wildfire smoke, with some of the haze even reaching Europe. [Continue reading…]

Reuters reports:

Monday, July 3, was the hottest day ever recorded globally, according to data from the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Prediction.

The average global temperature reached 17.01 degrees Celsius (62.62 Fahrenheit), surpassing the August 2016 record of 16.92C (62.46F) as heatwaves sizzled around the world.

The southern U.S. has been suffering under an intense heat dome in recent weeks. In China, an enduring heatwave continued, with temperatures above 35C (95F). North Africa has seen temperatures near 50C (122F).

And even Antarctica, currently in its winter, registered anomalously high temperatures. Ukraine’s Vernadsky Research Base in the white continent’s Argentine Islands recently broke its July temperature record with 8.7C (47.6F).

“This is not a milestone we should be celebrating,” said climate scientist Friederike Otto of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at Britain’s Imperial College London.

“It’s a death sentence for people and ecosystems.” [Continue reading…]

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