Data from Climate Reanalyzer says that daily sea surface temperatures for January 2024 are higher than they were in January 2023.
Data from Climate Reanalyzer says that daily sea surface temperatures for January 2024 are higher than they were in January 2023.
Our measured data suggests that El Niño is only really a small variation in the rising trend of temperatures. In this diagram, you can see El Niño years as early spikes, of what would become the La Niña plateau a few years later:
2023, as determined by the same organisation and with the same reference temperature, is at +1.2°C. Source
As such, it does somewhat jump beyond the trend so far, but so did 2016, and the hopes that 2016 was just a temporary high, that’s now definitely been crushed by 2023.
That’s why it would make sense, if it’s actually already accelerating. That would explain why we’re repeatedly seeing new highs by ever bigger margins…
Except according to that diagram 2016 was a temporary high, as we not only saw colder years since but the temperature tended to hover around the 2016 level, not constantly increasing at the 2015 to 2016 rate. If 2016 is a precedent, that than precedent is that the temperature should hover around 2023 levels for the next decade or so, not continue to increase at the same rate as we saw in 2023.