El Niño exacerbates global warming: Record heat, flooding, wildfires

If you feel like record-setting extreme weather events are happening with alarming frequency, you’re not alone. Scientists say it’s not your imagination.

“The amount of extreme weather we’re seeing simultaneously in the northern hemisphere seems to exceed anything at least in my memory,” Michael MannProfessor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania told CNBC.

within the globe, June was the hottest June on record in 174 years The federal agency said Thursday that the data is maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This is the 47th consecutive June and the 532nd consecutive month with average temperatures above the 20th century average.

Sea ice measured in June was the lowest June sea ice on record globally, largely due to record low Antarctic sea ice levels, Also according to NOAA.

There were nine tropical cyclones in June, defined as storms with wind speeds greater than 74 mph, and the global cumulative cyclone energy (a measure of the collective duration and intensity of tropical storms) was NOAA says June was nearly double the 1991-2020 average.

As of Friday morning, 93 million people in the United States were under heat advisories and heat warnings, according to the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center. Announcement on Friday morning. “Scorching heat waves will engulf much of the West Coast, Great Basin and Southwest,” the National Weather Service said.

On June 27, the total area burned in a single season in Canada reached 7.6 million hectares (18.8 million acres), surpassing the previous record set in 1989. That area has since grown to 9.3 million hectares, or 23 million acres, driven by record-breaking heat that turned vegetation into wildfire starter.

Record-setting wildfires in Canada have blanketed parts of the United States in smoke, causing some of the worst mass in the world at various locations.

Throughout 2022, There are 18 separate billion dollars According to NOAA, weather and climate hazard events include tornado outbreaks, high winds, hail, tropical cyclones, floods, droughts, heat waves and wildfires. Weather and climate disasters have cost $12 billion so far in 2023, according to NOAA.

“The number of extreme weather events this year will almost certainly break records,” Paul UlrichUC Davis professor of regional and global climate modeling told CNBC.

Global warming is making extreme weather events more severe, scientists say.

“Our own research suggests that the observed trend towards more frequent summer extremes (heat waves, floods) is driven by human-caused warming,” Mann told CNBC.

Ulrich agrees. “The increased frequency and intensity of heat waves, floods and wildfires can be directly attributed to climate change,” Ulrich told CNBC.

“Through greenhouse gas emissions, we trap more heat near the surface, leading to higher temperatures, more moisture in the air, and drier land surfaces,” Ulrich said. “Scientists are very confident that extreme events The increasing frequency and intensity of climate change is a direct consequence of human-made changes to the climate system.”

Also in June, the weather pattern known as “El Niño” arrives.

El Niño is like adding a lighter to an already smoldering fire. “Global temperatures have warmed under the recent El Niño pattern, further exacerbating the warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions,” Ulrich said.

The combination of man-made climate change and El Niño is “exacerbating some of these extreme events,” Mann said.

El Niño, which means “little boy” in Spanish, occurs when the normal trade winds that blow westward along the equator weaken, pushing warmer waters eastward, toward America’s west coast. In the United States, moderate to strong El Niño in the fall and winter has been associated with wet weather from southern California to the Gulf Coast and dry weather in the Pacific Northwest and Ohio Valley.

When global warming and El Niño occur at the same time, “it’s hard to tell if it’s just a weather event or part of a longer-term trend,” Timothy ContiA professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Maryland told CNBC.

But what is clear is that climate change is making extreme weather events more likely.

“The increase in temperatures caused by climate change is undisputed, with each degree of increase in temperature increasing the variability of extreme heat waves. In wetter parts of the world, including the northeastern United States, we expect more rainfall and Stronger storms,” ​​Ulrich told CNBC. “To avoid more extreme changes, we need to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and act to clean up our polluted atmosphere.”

The trend toward more frequent extreme weather is expected to continue as long as global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, Mann said.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions released into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels will help moderate extreme weather trends.

Mann told CNBC: “The good news is that new research shows that when carbon emissions stop, the warming of the surface that causes more extreme weather events stabilizes rapidly. So we can prevent this by decarbonizing the economy quickly. got worse.”

Each individual contribution to reducing our climate footprint helps, Canty said.

“People essentially ask me ‘what can I do as an individual that matters?’ and decide not to do anything but to blame other people. Honestly, it’s the society of individuals that got us to this point,” says Can Dee said.

Individuals can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by making small changes, such as turning off the lights when not in the room, turning down the heat or turning up the air conditioner when not at home, avoiding food waste and using public transportation.

Voting is also important, Canty said. Referring to the Montreal Protocol, Canty said government leaders have made successful progress on international environmental crises in the past. “There is a roadmap for working together to address environmental issues in a way that benefits everyone,” Canty said.

“Tackling the ozone hole will require governments, scientists and business to work together, and the Montreal Protocol and its amendments have been very successful not just on ozone but on climate,” Canty said, noting that ozone-depleting chemicals CFCs are also very harmful greenhouse gases. “The ozone hole is slowly recovering, we’ve avoided much worse global warming thanks to actions taken in the eighties, and we still have air conditioners and hairspray, which seemed like a huge panic at the time.”

Yet this series of extreme weather events is a harbinger of what’s to come if individuals and organizations don’t commit to aggressively reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

“If we don’t act, what we’re seeing right now is just the tip of the proverbial melting iceberg,” Mann told CNBC.