2024 on track to be the hottest year on record

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AccuWeather Forecasting Senior Director Dan DePodwin and AccuWeather Climate Expert Brett Anderson discuss top headlines related to hurricanes and climate change in the Nov. 15 edition of Climate In The News.

Transcript

00:00We're covering a couple of interesting climate stories today. The first

00:03discussing how 2024 is expected to be yet again the hottest year on record. The

00:09second one tying in that heat to how the western United States droughts have

00:13really become worse in the last several decades. And Brett turning to this first

00:18one from the World Meteorological Organization known as the WMO. The 2024

00:22the year here is on track to be the hottest year on record again breaking

00:27the 2023 record. Yeah not surprising we actually predicted this earlier in the

00:31year. El Nino has a fat plays a role in this but usually we see our warmest

00:37years the tail end of El Nino which was this year. So not surprising 2024 beat

00:42out 2023. 1.54 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels which if you

00:49remember the 1.5 degrees Celsius was the limit which many nations set. But again

00:56that's just one year. What that that goal is more of a decadal situation

01:02there. So it's still scary but if we start seeing that averaging out over 10

01:0720 years then we got a big problem there. Past 10 years were the warmest 10 years

01:12on record globally. Yeah and I think the impacts to that Brett are really

01:15important in there and they're really far-reaching. It extends from sea ice in

01:20the in the Antarctic being the lowest on record to I think sea level rise maybe

01:24being one of the more tangible ways that different people around the world have

01:28really experienced the impacts of climate change. Yeah sea level rise

01:30mostly due to warming of the oceans which is thermal expansion and of course

01:34the melting of glaciers and sea level rise been consistent. So storms 20-30

01:40years ago affecting the coast may have not produced much flooding. Now with the

01:44higher sea level doesn't take much to produce a significant flooding. And that

01:48heat the the warmth of the atmosphere is really contributing to our second story

01:52here and the impacts from that from the Los Angeles Times discussing how climate

01:56change is one of the or the the main driver of the drought of the worsening

02:00droughts across the western United States in the last couple years

02:03especially the 2020 to 2022 drought. Yeah over the 20th century most of the

02:08droughts in the western US were due to lack of rainfall or snowfall combined. Now

02:13what the this research is finding in the 21st century most of the the droughts

02:19that we're seeing is due to increased heat and why is that? Well the heat is

02:23causing greater evaporation so with the greater evaporation the land dries out

02:28more and the sun's energy goes directly to heating the ground instead of

02:31evaporating water. And one of the things to always be concerned about with

02:34droughts obviously is the impact on water and water availability which is a

02:38really big concern in the western US. Yeah the Colorado River has been the

02:42flow of the Colorado River since 2000 down 20% so you can just imagine what

02:47type of impact that's having. And Brett that impact on water availability is

02:50one we'll be tracking here throughout the next many decades as more people

02:54move to the desert southwest and obviously the increase in drought may

02:58become even more impactful with the fact that these droughts may become more

03:02frequent as we head towards the end of the century which is what the research

03:05shows. So thanks Brett for that insight and for this information and more

03:09climate stories you can find those at AccuWeather.com slash climate.

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