The 2023 global warming spike was driven by  the El Niño–Southern Oscillation

Raghuraman, Shiv Priyam; Soden, Brian; Clement, Amy; Vecchi, Gabriel; Menemenlis, Sofia; Yang, Wenchang

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-11275-2024

Articles | Volume 24, issue 19

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-11275-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-11275-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 24, issue 19

ACP Letters

| Highlight paper

|

10 Oct 2024

ACP Letters | Highlight paper |

| 10 Oct 2024

The 2023 global warming spike was driven by the El Niño–Southern Oscillation

Shiv Priyam Raghuraman, Brian Soden, Amy Clement, Gabriel Vecchi, Sofia Menemenlis, and Wenchang Yang

Data sets

The 2023 global warming spike was driven by El Niño/Southern Oscillation S. P. Raghuraman et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13852048

An updated assessment of near-surface temperature change from 1850: the HadCRUT5 data set (https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcrut5/data/HadCRUT.5.0.2.0/analysis/HadCRUT.5.0.2.0.analysis.anomalies.ensemble_mean.nc) C. P. Morice et al. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019JD032361

Improvements in the GISTEMP uncertainty model (https://data.giss.nasa.gov/pub/gistemp/gistemp1200_GHCNv4_ERSSTv5.nc.gz) N. J. Lenssen et al. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018JD029522

The Berkeley Earth Land/Ocean Temperature Record (https://berkeley-earth-temperature.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/Global/Gridded/Land_and_Ocean_LatLong1.nc) R. A. Rohde and Z. Hausfather https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-3469-2020

Overview of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) experimental design and organization (https://esgf-node.llnl.gov/projects/cmip6/) V. Eyring et al. https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-1937-2016

LongRunMIP: motivation and design for a large collection of millennial-length AOGCM simulations (https://www.longrunmip.org/) M. Rugenstein et al. https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-19-0068.1

Model code and software

The 2023 global warming spike was driven by El Niño/Southern Oscillation S. P. Raghuraman https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13852018

Executive editor

The rapid increase in global warming in 2023 has sparked fears that Earth has entered a new warm state. Possible explanations for a warming spike have included transient changes in radiative forcing or deficiencies in climate models. This study shows that the primary cause is a mode of natural climate variability – the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The authors show that, while the magnitude of global warming caused by ENSO was particularly large in 2023, it is not unprecedented in the historical record. The implication is that global warming is continuing at a steady average rate without dramatic acceleration.