This is confirmed to be the hottest September on record, with temperatures that were 0.5 degrees Celsius (ºC) above the previous maximum in 2020 and 1.75ºC above the September average between 1850 and 1900, before the large greenhouse gas emissions, researcher Filipe Duarte Santos warns in TSF because what he says is a “sign of worsening” climate change.
“We must be concerned because the warming of the atmosphere, therefore global warming, that is, the increase in the average temperature of the atmosphere at the surface, is a sign of the worsening of this climate change that has its origin in some human activities. “, noted the day the European Copernicus observatory announced that last month was the warmest September on record by an “extraordinary” margin.
Among the human activities that contribute to this new maximum, explained Filipe Duarte Santos, is above all the global dependence on current primary sources of energy, since 82% of this comes from “two fossil fuels, or seja, carvão, petroleum and do natural gas”.
“When these fossil fuels are burned, large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) are emitted into the atmosphere, in addition to the emissions resulting from “land abuse on a global scale, most especially from deforestation that occurs mainly in tropical forests.” humid areas of the Amazon and the Congo basin in Africa, but also in Indonesia and that region of Southeast Asia.
But there is more: the data revealed by Copernicus also revealed that the global average temperature since January is the highest ever recorded in the first nine months of a year, since it was 1.4 ºC above the climate in the decades 1850-1900 . Therefore, this warming is very close to the objective defined in the Paris agreement, of limiting the increase in temperatures to 1.5 ºC.
Entering the El Niño phase
Another factor that contributes to this warming is the so-called El Niño, a phenomenon that causes “the surface temperature of the waters near the equator in the Pacific – especially those near South America – to be higher,” said the researcher, with a “tendency to warm the atmosphere.”
In July, the United Nations (UN) warned that in 2023, El Niño would be “at least moderate” in intensity, and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) immediately said that “new temperature records. “.
Filipe Duarte Santos warns precisely that “we are entering an El Niño phase and this also tends to increase the average global temperature”, which will thus add to the previous “worsening of the causes of climate change.”
The opposite phenomenon, called La Niña, tends to cause a drop in temperatures and has been present in the last three years (2020-2023), so an even more pronounced increase in “temperature” is expected with its end. global average”. “.
Source: TSF
