Climate scientists are reporting pockets of extreme temperature zones that far exceed global warming predictions.
The Columbia Climate School (CCS) says these extreme trends are the “outcome of physical interactions we might not completely understand”.
The latest CCS report says that the 10 hottest yearly average temperatures have occurred in the past decade and 2024 is on track to set another heat record.
“Amid this upward march in average temperatures, a striking new phenomenon is emerging,” the report says.
“Distinct regions are seeing repeated heat waves that are so extreme, they fall far beyond what any model of global warming can predict or explain.”
A new study provides the first worldwide map of such regions, which show up on every continent except Antarctica “like giant, angry skin blotches”.
Areas where these blotches have been monitored include areas of NSW and Western Australia.
The report said that globally these heat waves had killed tens of thousands of people, withered crops and forests, and sparked devastating wildfires.
“The large and unexpected margins by which recent regional-scale extremes have broken earlier records have raised questions about the degree to which climate models can provide adequate estimates of relations between global mean temperature changes and regional climate risks,” the study says.
“This is about extreme trends that are the outcome of physical interactions we might not completely understand,” lead author Kai Kornhuber said.
“These regions become temporary hothouses.”
The study was just published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“These extreme heat waves have been hitting predominantly in the last five years or so, though some occurred in the early 2000s or before,” the report says.
“The most hard-hit regions include populous central China, Japan, Korea, the Arabian peninsula, eastern Australia and scattered parts of Africa.
“Others include Canada’s Northwest Territories and its High Arctic islands, northern Greenland, the southern end of South America and scattered patches of Siberia.”
The full report is on the CCS website.
