2024 Was the Warmest Year on Record. Meaning that, for many of us, Winters are COLDER at times.

[SorellaLaBefana]

...NASA scientists further estimate Earth in 2024 was about 1.47 degrees Celsius (2.65 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the 1850–1900 average. For more than half of 2024, average temperatures were more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the baseline, and the annual average, with mathematical uncertainties, may have exceeded the level for the first time...

“The Paris Agreement on climate change sets forth efforts to remain below 1.5 degrees Celsius over the long term. To put that in perspective, temperatures during the warm periods on Earth three million years ago—when sea levels were dozens of feet higher than today—were only around 3 degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial levels,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. “We are halfway to Pliocene-level warmth in just 150 years.”

Scientists have concluded the warming trend of recent decades is driven by heat-trapping carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases. In 2022 and 2023, Earth saw record increases in carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels, according to a recent international analysis. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased from pre-industrial levels in the 18th century of approximately 278 parts per million to about 420 parts per million today...

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/153806/2024-was-the-warmest-year-on-record

And. no, that *does not* mean that every day is hotter!

Also, no, this doesn't mean that any unusually cold day/days disproves decades of scientific study—although you'd be hard pressed to find this fact widely reported by most media outlets: since made-up BS brings in so much more money than facts.

The evidence is that extremes of temperature will occur, as the world as a whole warms.

This is difficult to understand. For example, when Texas started having much hotter summers starting around two decades ago, many of us who live here figured, well, OK, what's going to happen is that winters we be warmer as well. We'll just be more like Cancun.

Not so. We've had several unusually cold spells during subsequent winters. Indeed, the current cold we're having is what brought this subject to the top of our minds last night. This NASA Earth article was well timed as a reminder to us of what is driving these often devastating cold spells.

Here's a fairly good overview of this phenomenon in a BBC (MSM!) article from 2021
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-58425526

You might, before it goes Dark, also take a look at
https://www.climate.gov/

[John1956PA]

1. The risk which Texas faces from a weakened AMOC is discussed here:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/atlantic-currents-are-at-risk-of-collapsing-sooner-than-we-think-could-it-affect-texas/ar-AA1wUMOE

[Think. Again.]

2. K&R