World Surprisingly Had Its Hottest January On Record This Year

Red hot world again. January was the warmest on record for
the Earth as a whole, with very few places on the
chilly side and many at record heat. 

Scientists got a surprise from the latest snapshot of global temperatures. It turns out January was unexpectedly the warmest on record for the world as a whole. 

Sure, the continental United States was chilly, as I reported in an earlier post on Monday,  but that was very much the exception

The National Centers for Environmental Information, or NCEI states: 

"The new January global record is particularly notable for having occurred during a La Nina episode, the cold phase El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Global temperatures tend to be cooler during periods of La Nina in comparison to periods with an El Nino present."

Not this time. 

 The three previous world record warm Januaries all occurred during the opposite El Nino, which tends to boost global temperatures. 

As always the NCEI data was sound, as other scientific organizations agreed with the assessment. The European Copernicus Climate Change Service, and Berkeley Earth both measured the Earth as having its hottest January on record. 

Almost the whole world was warm, with the hottest places relative to average in the Arctic, Alaska, northwestern and northeastern Canada, most of central and eastern Europe, southern South America and western Australia. 

The few cold spots were quite a bit chillier than you'd expect. Those rather small cold places were the as-mentioned central and southeastern United States, a good chunk of Greenland, far eastern Russia and a weird, very small area of southern Africa. 

NCEI still says there's only a 7 percent chance that 2025 will be the hottest year on record. 

The warm trend has been happening for long time, but is now accelerating. If you are under the age of 49, you've never seen a global January that was cooler than the 20th century average. 

WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?

 It's true that this warm January occurred during an El Nino, but it is a weak one, so it might not be having as much an effect on the world's temperature as a stronger one would. 

But I wonder if that fully explains why January was so warm. Snow cover was well below normal in the northern hemisphere. Snow reflect heat back to space, so if there's less snow, the Earth has an opportunity to warm up a little more than it otherwise would. 

But that still might not explain everything. 

One compelling explanation is clouds. Or more precisely, a lack thereof. 

Cloud cover on Earth was below normal in January, and in fact, clouds have been lacking for the past two years. Those two years have shown an alarming acceleration in the how fast the world is warming up. 

High, thin clouds tend to have an overall warming effect on the world. Low stratus or billowy cumulus clouds tend to cool us off a bit. It's those low clouds that have been lacking, explains the Washington Post. 

From above, these low clouds are shimmering white, which reflects the sun's heat back up into space much like that snow cover does. 

The next question is why there are fewer clouds. WaPo explains:

"Researchers are still unsure exactly what accounts for this decrease. Some believe the it could be due to less air pollution: When particulates are in the air, it can make it easier for water droplets to stick to them and form clouds.

Another possibility (Helge) Goesling said, is a feedback loop from warming temperatures. Clouds require moisture to form and moist stratocumulus clouds sit just underneath a dry layer of air about one mile high. If temperatures warm, hot air from below can disturb that dry layer, mixing with it and making it harder for wet clouds to form."

Goessling is a climate physicist at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany and is the author of one of the studies that looked at why the Earth was reflecting less heat back to space.  

Feedback loops are dangerous because they feed off each other.  If the cloud theories are correct, fewer low clouds will accelerate global heating. That accelerating heat destroys even more low clouds, which begets even more heat and so on and so on. 

Despite the temporarily chill we've been feeling here in Vermont this year, the unexpected global heat in January, plus these new studies, suggest we have more record-shattering heat in our not so distant future. 

Not just here in Vermont but throughout the entire world. 

Think it's been hot in recent years? You ain't seen nothin' yet.