Showing posts with label Northern Hemisphere. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Northern Hemisphere. Show all posts

Friday, August 7, 2026

Record high temperatures

Record high global surface air temperature for the time of year

On August 8, 2026, the global surface air temperature was 17.04°C, the highest temperature on record for this day of the year. The globe (inset) shows the global temperature anomaly on August 8, 2026, with anomalies showing up higher than 12°C.


Record high Northern Hemisphere surface air temperature 

Land temperatures are rising faster than ocean temperatures. The Northern Hemisphere is heating up faster than the Southern Hemisphere, since the Northern Hemisphere has more land. On August 1, 2026, a record high temperature of 22.4°C was reached in the Northern Hemisphere, 1.45°C higher than 1979-2000, as illustrated by the image below. The globe (inset) shows temperature anomalies versus 1991-2020 on August 1, 2026, with the Northern Hemisphere highlighted.

[ click on images to enlarge ]
The above anomalies are not calculated from pre-industrial. Another threshold is the wet-bulb temperature threshold, at which the human body can no longer cool down by sweating even in strong wind.

The image below shows a forecast for July 26, 2026, 21:00 UTC. The image shows a temperature of 122°F (50°C) at a location near Death Valley with a relative humidity of 9% resulting in a wet bulb globe temperature of 95°F (35°C). At the same time, a temperature of 116°F (47°C) with a relative humidity of 20% results in a wet bulb globe temperature of 97°F (36°C) at a location in the south of California.

[ Wet-bulb threshold crossed, image from earlier post ]
The wet-bulb globe temperature is measured in direct sunlight, whereas the wet-bulb temperature is measured in the shade. The wet-bulb temperature threshold can be reached or exceeded by a combination of temperature and humidity, and it is the maximum, the absolute physiological limit, that a human can endure as a peak. It was long assumed that reaching such a limit would require a large increase in global temperature. However, a 2020 study (led by Raymond) warns that this limit could be regularly exceeded with a temperature rise of less than 2.5°C above pre-industrial. As the above image indicates, the wet bulb globe temperature limit can already be reached or even exceeded now.

Furthermore, a 2022 study (led by Vecellio) finds that the actual limit can be much lower — about 31°C wet-bulb or 87°F at 100% humidity — even for young, healthy subjects. The temperature for older populations, who are more vulnerable to heat, is likely even lower. In practice the limit will typically be lower and depending on circumstances could be as low as a wet-bulb temperature of 25°C.

Record high sea surface temperature 

As illustrated by the image below, from an earlier post, the world (60°S–60°N, 0–360°E) sea surface temperature was 21.2°C on August 5, 2026, a record high temperature and 0.99°C higher than 1982-2010 (which is not pre-industrial). The globe (inset bottom left) shows sea surface temperature anomalies versus 1991-2020 on August 5, 2026.


Ocean heat is getting pushed along the path of the Gulf Stream from the North Atlantic through the Fram Strait into the Arctic Ocean and - to a lesser extent - from the North Pacific through the Bering Strait into the Arctic Ocean.

The image below shows sea surface temperature anomalies on August 9, 2026.  


The image below, adapted from NOAA, shows sea surface temperatures as high as 33.3°C (or 91.94°F) around North America on August 9, 2026. The image also illustrates geographic conditions facilitating the Gulf Stream to push ocean heat north in the Atlantic Ocean toward the Arctic.

[ Sea surface temperatures as high as 33.3°C on August 9, 2026 - click on images to enlarge ]

As temperatures at higher latitudes rise, the danger increases that a huge amount of warm, salty water suddenly gets pushed into the Arctic Ocean by a cyclone, destabilizing sediments at the seafloor and triggering eruptions of methane from hydrates. This danger has been discussed in many earlier posts such as this 2018 post.

The combination image below shows a nullschool.net image with a sea surface temperature of 4.6°C or 40.3°F recorded at the green circle on August 8, 2026 (left), and Northern Hemisphere maximum temperature on August 9, 2026 (right).


Sea ice 

The combination image below shows Arctic sea ice concentration on August 8, 2026 (left), and Arctic sea ice thickness on August 8, 2026 (right). 


On August 8, 2026, Arctic sea ice extent was 6.195 million km², while Antarctic sea ice extent was 16.314 million km², as also illustrated by the image below that also shows sea ice concentration on August 8, 2026.


On August 11, 2026, the global sea ice area was 3.14 million km² lower than 1981-2010, the second lowest on record for that day and a deviation of -5.46σ, as illustrated by the image below. The year 2026 is highlighted in black, the year 2025 is highlighted in blue and the years 2023 and 2024 are highlighted in purple. 


El Niño

The image below shows that the sea surface temperature in the Nino3.4 region was 29.65°C on August 9, 2026, 2.87°C higher than 1982-2010 and a jump of 3.9°C in a span of 7 months from the 25.75°C recorded on January 9, 2026. The globe (inset bottom) shows sea surface temperature anomalies versus 1991-2020 on August 9, 2026 with the Nino3.4 region highlighted in the Pacific Ocean.


Back in March 2026, La Niña was dominant, but this time what is forecast to be the strongest El Niño on record is present and it is strengthening, with the potential to unleash a Double Blue Ocean Event, an Arctic Blue Ocean Event in 2026 followed by an Antarctic Blue Ocean Event in early 2027.


The above image is adapted from Climate Reanalyzer and shows sea surface temperature anomalies versus 1951-1980 over the years in the Niño3.4 region, a region in the Pacific Ocean that is indicative for El Niño strength. The image has a potential 2026 El Niño anomaly of more than 3.5°C added (red dashed line on the right) to highlight the danger that a Double Blue Ocean Event will occur.

[ click on images to enlarge, image from earlier post ]
The above image, from Berkeley Earth Temperature Report for 2024, illustrates the importance of Antarctic Sea ice loss in accelerating the temperature rise in 2020-2023 compared to 2010-2019. The red color shows an area with an extra radiative forcing of +2.1 W/m², which is primarily the result of Antarctic sea ice loss. This +2.1 W/m² is about as much as forcing as the change caused by all CO² released by people from 1750 to 2019, according to IPCC AR6 figures (image right, from earlier post).

Antarctic sea ice area was only 1.09 million km² on February 22, 2023, very close to the 1 million km² threshold when a Blue Ocean Event could be called, as illustrated by the image on the right, from an earlier post.

El Niño could trigger huge rise

Land temperatures are rising faster than ocean temperatures. The image below shows NASA Land-Only annual anomalies versus 1880-1890 (not pre-industrial) through 2025. 


The above image shows that 1.5°C was crossed on land for each month since 2009 (black squares). The Lowess 3-year smoothing trend (red line) indicates that 2°C was crossed on land in 2021 and that 3°C may get crossed on land soon, possibly before 2030 if this trend continues (dashed red extension), or even as early as end 2026, triggered by El Niño (see image below).

As said, land temperatures are rising faster than ocean temperatures. The Northern Hemisphere is heating up faster than the Southern Hemisphere, since the Northern Hemisphere has more land. The image below shows NOAA temperature anomalies versus 1901-2000 (not pre-industrial) on land in the Northern Hemisphere through July 2026 with a polynomial trend added. The image should act as a warning, illustrating the danger that the strengthening 2026 El Niño could trigger a rapid and steep rise in temperature on land in the Northern Hemisphere in late 2026 that could cross the 3°C threshold.


Human extinction

Most people live on land in the Northern Hemisphere. A 2019 post discussed that a temperature rise of more than 3°C may be fatal for many species, including humans. 

The screenshot below describes the existential danger for humans.
The screenshot below adds: 
Conclusion

The situation is dire and unacceptably dangerous, and the precautionary principle necessitates the danger to be acknowledged, while facilitating rapid, comprehensive and effective action to reduce the damage and to improve the outlook, where needed in combination with a Climate Emergency Declaration, as described in posts such as in this 2022 post and this 2025 post, and as discussed in the Climate Plan group.


Links

• Climate Reanalyzer
https://climatereanalyzer.org

• NASA - Goddard Institute for Space Studies
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp

• NOAA - Sea Surface Temperature Contour Charts
https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/products/ocean/sst/contour/index.html

• Rising temperature threatens to devastate sea ice 


• Double Blue Ocean Event

• Double Blue Ocean Event 2026-2027? - update

• Antarctica


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Sunday, January 7, 2024

2024 looks to be worse than 2023


The year 2024 looks to be worse than the year 2023. The above chart shows sea surface temperatures that were extremely high in 2023 followed by a steep rise in 2024, crossing 21°C in early January 2024.

The chart below illustrates this further, showing the daily sea surface temperature anomaly using 1 Sep. 1981 to 31 Dec. 2023 data versus the 1982-2011 mean for latitudes between 60°S and 60°N.

The importance of sea surface temperatures

Slowing down of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) results in less ocean heat reaching the Arctic Ocean and, instead, a huge amount of ocean heat has been accumulating in the North Atlantic in 2023.

Much of the heat in the North Atlantic could soon be pushed abruptly into the Arctic Ocean, as storms can temporarily speed up currents strongly, carrying huge amounts of ocean heat with them into the Arctic Ocean.


The mechanism behind this has been described often in earlier posts and this page. Meltwater and rain can cause a freshwater lid to form and grow at the surface of the North Atlantic and this, in combination with greater stratification as ocean temperatures rise (above image), can enable more ocean heat to increasingly travel underneath this lid from the North Atlantic into the Arctic Ocean, and especially so at times when Jet Stream changes are causing storms that speed up ocean currents along this path.


The danger is illustrated by the above image, showing a forecast for January 11, 2024, with the Jet Stream moving almost vertically over the North Atlantic to the north. The image below shows heat over the North Atlantic, with temperatures reaching as high as 10.5°C or 50.8°F over Greenland (at the green circle) at 1000 hPa on January 10, 2024, 07:00 UTC.


The image below shows 2 meter temperature anomalies on January 11, 2024. 


Very high sea surface temperature anomalies can occur in the path of the Gulf Stream, as illustrated by the image below showing high sea surface temperatures on January 3, 2024, as high as 11.7°C (21°F) at the green circle, over the counterpart of the Gulf Stream in the Pacific, off the coast of Japan. 


Earlier posts have warned about this, such as this post and this video, almost seven years ago. This could cause events during which much ocean heat moves abruptly into the Arctic Ocean, resulting in seafloor methane releases, overwhelming of the latent heat buffer and causing sea ice loss (and thus albedo loss), as well as loss of lower clouds (thus causing further albedo loss), while open oceans are also less efficient than sea ice when it comes to emitting in the far-infrared region of the spectrum and while an ice-free Arctic Ocean will also release more ocean heat into the atmosphere.


Arctic sea ice volume is very low for the time of year, as illustrated by the above image.

A large part of the thicker sea ice is located off Greenland's East Coast, as illustrated by the above image. Much of the sea ice will therefore rapidly disappear as the water heats up in 2024.


The above image, adapted from tropicaltidbits.com, shows a forecast for October 2024 of the 2-meter temperature anomaly in degrees Celsius, based on 1984-2009 model climatology. The anomalies are forecast to be very high for the Arctic Ocean.

In the video below, Jennifer Francis is interviewed by Nick Breeze. 



The importance of daily air temperatures, Northern Hemisphere


[ from the Extinction page ]
The situation is dire. The Northern Hemisphere is getting hit hardest by high temperatures, as illustrated by the above image. 

The Northern Hemisphere is home to some 90% of the world population of more than 8 billion people, with much of them living in South-East Asia.

As more people become aware of the dire situation, widespread panic may set in.

People may stop showing up for work, resulting in a rapid loss of the aerosol masking effect, as industries that now co-emit cooling aerosols (such as sulfates) grind to a halt.

Many people may start to collect and burn more wood, resulting in an increase in emissions that speed up the temperature rise.

As temperatures rise, more fires could also break out in forests, peatlands and urban areas including landfills and waste dumps, further contributing to emissions that speed up the temperature rise.

The image on the right illustrates how fast a huge temperature could unfold.

As a somewhat sobering footnote, humans will likely go extinct with a 3°C rise and most life on Earth will disappear with a 5°C rise, as discussed in an earlier post.


Climate Emergency Declaration

The situation is dire and the precautionary principle calls for rapid, comprehensive and effective action to reduce the damage and to improve the situation, as described in this 2022 post, where needed in combination with a Climate Emergency Declaration, as discussed at this group.



Links
• Climate Reanalyzer 
https://climatereanalyzer.org

• Nullschool

• Danish Meteorological Institute - Arctic sea ice volume and thickness
https://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icethickness/thk.uk.php

• New Record Ocean Temperatures and Related Climate Indicators in 2023 - by Lijing Checg et al. (2024)

• Cold freshwater lid on North Atlantic
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/cold-freshwater-lid-on-north-atlantic.html

• Extinction







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