Heat and high temperatures may be result of diminishing cloud cover: study
Temperatures have risen far higher over the past two years than scientists expected. A study offers a possible reason why: Cloud cover has decreased.
Temperatures around the world have risen far higher over the past two years than scientists expected. The trend has given rise to a puzzle: Are hidden climate change dynamics behind the sudden shift?
Last year was the hottest in recorded history, and through summer, 2024 was on pace to be hotter. Even after factoring in the expected effects of greenhouse gas pollution and El Niño — a natural pattern that typically boosts temperatures — researchers couldn’t account for roughly 0.2 degrees Celsius (0.36 degrees Fahrenheit) of the warming observed in 2023.
A new study offers a possible explanation: Cloud cover has decreased over the past two years, it found, allowing more light to reach and heat the Earth’s surface, rather than being reflected back to space.
The research, published Thursday in the journal Science, suggests that an overall decline in the planet’s albedo, as that dynamic is called, is a likely cause of the temperature anomaly observed in 2023.
“This pretty much fits this most recent additional increase of observed solar radiation,” said Helge Goessling, an author of the study and a climate physicist at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany.
Rating: 5