Archives par mot-clé : Hunga Tonga

climate-debate

Temperature rising

by Nature Geoscience, Mar 12, 2025

A record-breaking start to 2025 extends the recent period of exceptional warmth and raises questions over the rate of ongoing climate change.

This January saw global mean surface temperature reach 1.75 °C above the preindustrial climate1. The unprecedented heat continues a period of warmth beginning in 2023 that has seen records repeatedly broken. The surge in temperature back in 2023 was in part expected due to the combination of human driven climate change and the onset of El Niño — which is characterized by higher global temperatures. However, the magnitude of the jump was surprising2 and many climate scientists expected temperatures to fall somewhat as El Niño came to an end in the second half of 2024. The continued record temperatures are puzzling and raise questions as to whether it is natural variability or an acceleration in anthropogenic warming. Quantifying the causes and impacts of the recent warmth could reveal important insights into our future.

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A third, potentially more concerning explanation for the drop in cloud cover is an emerging low-cloud feedback, whereby low cloud cover decreases with rising temperature, which further intensifies warming5. How clouds respond to warming remains one of the biggest uncertainties in understanding the climate response to carbon dioxide emissions. A strong low-cloud feedback could lead to more future warming than currently anticipated.

Pinning down the contributing factors to the recent exceptional warmth could prove invaluable for constraining our future trajectory. In particular, we need to clarify what has driven the observed changes in cloud cover. As records continue to fall, now more than ever, it is essential we understand the complex interplay between greenhouse gas driven warming and short-term climate variability.

climate and geology

The MSM Has Memory-Holed Tonga’s Warming Effects On World Temps

by E. Erickson, Aug 14, 2023 in ClimateChangeDispatch

On Jan. 15, 2022, the underwater Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai volcano in the Pacific exploded. The volcano triggered tsunamis in the South Pacific and sent a massive plume of water vapor into the stratosphere.

Over the past year, scientists have increased the estimates of how much water vapor went into the stratosphere. That water vapor, every scientist agrees, warms the planet. [emphasis, links added]

Originally, scientists estimated 50 million metric tons of water went into the atmosphere.

Now, revised estimates are at 150 million metric tons, which equates to 40 trillion gallons of water injected into the stratosphere.

Over the past year, dozens of scientists have produced papers warning that the summer of 2023 and possibly into the next decade would be abnormally hot.

Scientists suggest the global temperature could increase more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.

In fact, that is exactly what is happening. Up until the summer heat wave, news reports noted the expected increase in temperatures due to the volcano.

But as the heat wave began, as predicted, the volcano and its water vapor disappeared from coverage.

Now, in the progressive spirit of never letting a crisis go to waste, the American and European press corpshave begun a full-court press on climate change.

Instead of the volcano, people, capitalism, and oil companies are to blame for the heat wave.

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