Minobe Shoshiro, Behrens Erik, Findell Kirsten L, Loeb Norman G, Meyssignac Benoit, Sutton Rowan
Faculty of Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan.
The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, Wellington, New Zealand.
NPJ Clim Atmos Sci. 2025;8(1):138. doi: 10.1038/s41612-025-00996-z. Epub 2025 Apr 7.
Climate records have been broken with alarming regularity in recent years, but the events of 2023-2024 were exceptional even when accounting for recent climatic trends. Here we quantify these events across multiple variables and show how excess energy accumulation in the Earth system drove the exceptional conditions. Key factors were the positive decadal trend in Earth's Energy Imbalance (EEI), persistent La Niña conditions beginning in 2020, and the switch to El Niño in 2023. Between 2022 and 2023, the heating from EEI was over 75% larger than during the onset of similar recent El Niño events. We show further how regional processes shaped distinct patterns of record-breaking sea surface temperatures in individual ocean basins. If the recent trend in EEI is maintained, we argue that natural fluctuations such as ENSO cycles will increasingly lead to amplified, record-breaking impacts, with 2023-2024 serving as a glimpse of future climate extremes.
近年来，气候记录被打破的频率令人担忧，但即便考虑到近期的气候趋势，2023 - 2024年的事件仍属异常。在此，我们对多个变量的这些事件进行量化，并展示地球系统中过多的能量积累是如何导致这些异常情况的。关键因素包括地球能量失衡（EEI）的十年期正向趋势、始于2020年的持续拉尼娜现象，以及2023年向厄尔尼诺的转变。在2022年至2023年期间，EEI产生的热量比近期类似厄尔尼诺事件开始时高出75%以上。我们进一步展示了区域过程如何塑造了各个海洋盆地破纪录海表温度的不同模式。我们认为，如果EEI的近期趋势持续下去，诸如厄尔尼诺 - 南方涛动（ENSO）循环等自然波动将越来越多地导致放大的、破纪录的影响，2023 - 2024年的情况只是未来气候极端事件的一个缩影。
