Even though much of the US trembled in frigid conditions last month, the planet overall recorded its warmest January in January, scientists said Thursday.
Warmth was something of a surprise to climate researchers. It occurred during the La Niña conditions in the Pacific Ocean. This tends to at least temporarily lower the average temperature of the Earth.
The Earth's surface has been so warm for most of the last two years that scientists are looking to see if anything else in the planet's chemistry has changed.
These emissions, burnt coal, gas and oil byproducts continue to be key drivers of global warming, reaching record levels in both 2023 and 2024.
It was thanks to La Niña that scientists expected this year to be slightly cooler than the past two years, both experienced the opposite pattern of El Niño. The waters of the tropical Pacific Ocean in the eastern vibrate between the states of El Niño and La Niña, affecting the weather around the world by changing the balance between the heat of the ocean and the heat in the air.
However, many other factors also exist in the global temperature. At this point, there's no good chance that 2025 isn't likely to be the hottest year for books, Russell Voth, a climate scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, recently told reporters. However, this time last year, researchers said about the same thing about 2024, Dr. Vose said. They were wrong.
“So it's a difficult game to predict global temperatures,” Dr. Voth said.
Last month, the European Union climate watchdog was far more than usual in northern Canada, Alaska, Siberia, Australia and parts of Antarctica, according to Copernicus. Copernicus said extraordinary high temperatures above the Hudson Bay and the Labrador Sea helped reduce Arctic Ocean ice to a record drop in January.
As scientists try to explain an endless streak of global warming, one of the things they focused on is reducing air pollution.
In this week's report, James Hansen, a well-known former NASA scientist, argued that cutting pollution already plays a major role in accelerating global warming. The reason is a bit counterintuitive. For decades, humans have not only released carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases when burning fossil fuels. They also expel small sulfate particles into the air.
These particles help to promote the formation of brighter clouds and protect the Earth from the sun. However, this cooling effect has been reduced as regulators have suppressed sulfate contamination to protect people's lungs, exposing the planet to the full power of greenhouse warming.
Thirty years ago, Dr. Hansen was one of the first scientists to attract broad attention to climate change. Speaking to reporters this week, he insisted that the UN is not ready to deal with accelerated warming.
He said the UN's approach to achieving climate goals remains dependent on society to reduce carbon emissions in the coming decades. These goals now seem “impossible” to achieve, Dr. Hansen said, “Unless miracles we don't understand, don't happen.”
