Zeke Hausfather: May 2024 was the warmest May on record by a large margin, beating the prior May record set in 2020 by nearly 0.2C and coming in at 1.52C above preindustrial levels. With 5 months of data in, 2024 is broadly on track (~75% chance) to beat 2023 as the warmest year on record:

May 2024 was the warmest May on record by a large margin, beating the prior May record set in 2020 by nearly 0.2C and coming in at 1.52C above preindustrial levels. With 5 months of data in, 2024 is broadly on track (~75% chance) to beat 2023 as the warmest year on record:

Here are May temperatures, including the May monthly data from Copernicus/ERA5 (based on their daily data through the end of May):

We saw a notable spike in global temperatures in the final week of the month. If they persist, it makes it more likely we may see the hottest June on record as well:

Finally, here is how my projections of annual 2024 temperatures have changed since the start of the year, and as each month of additional data has come in. At this point 2024 is likely but far from certain to beat 2023 as the warmest year on record (~75% chance):

That warming in the pipeline in the oceans is now increasingly coming up again to the surface also does not help. Question: when does thermal stratification becomes so high that ocean heat uptake to deeper depths will decline reinforcing the MHW signal and cloud feedback turning the wheel faster...

Created an account to ask, is the May anomaly more extreme than expected? Dr. Schmidt’s “Uncharted Territory” article has me hyper-analyzing everything climate related.

May is a bit high, particularly the final week of the month; I'd have been more comfortable with a record margin on 0.1C rather than 0.18C. But the big test will be June and July as El Nino fades.

What are your expectations for those months?

The next two studies that we could be close to a physical runaway climate warming: Recent global temperature surge amplified by record-low planetary albedo arxiv.org/abs/2405.19986 "Observational Assessment of Changes in Earth’s Energy Imbalance Since 2000 link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Recent global temperature surge amplified by record-low planetary albedoarxiv.org In 2023, the global mean temperature soared to 1.48K above the pre-industrial level, surpassing the previous record by 0.17K. Previous best-guess estimates of known drivers including anthropogenic...

Combine that with the studies that thermal stratification and reduced mixed layer depth as the meta cause behind marine heatwaves, the study that thermal stratification went through the roof in 2023 and that marine heatwaves continuing to intensify in most regions just now...

I "liked" this post to let you know that I appreciate the work you do to bring us up to date information. I do not like the information itself and its effects on the word.

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