Usually, the hottest years the Earth experiences, as the globe warms (which sounds reminiscent of that famous soap opera), are when an El Niño event occurs in the Pacific Ocean. That can cause an illusion, because La Niña years, when the equatorial Pacific ocean waters get cooler instead of warmer, can look like a particular year is bucking the warming trend, though that isn't true. This plot, which I've shown before on Twitter, helps defeat the illusion.
This ends in 2015, which at the time was a record hot year - until 2016.
So after the El Niño influenced years of 2015-2016, 2017 didn't have one. There were hints of a La Niña, but nothing of significance had occurred through the end of the year. So 2017 was a non-El Niño year.
And, as would be expected with a warming world, it was the hottest non-El Niño year ever. So that is indeed scant comfort. And in the article below, there's a version of the plot I have above, updated through 2017 - so you can see exactly what just happened.
2017 was the hottest year on record without an El Niño, thanks to global warming
No comments:
Post a Comment