California is one of the few blue spots on this world map
The world faced record high temperatures in 2023, and it is expected to be the warmest year on record. September was particularly hot: record temperatures covered 20% of the world’s surface.
“Not only was this the warmest September on record, it was also the warmest month on record in 174 years of climate conservation by NOAA,” Sarah Kapnick, a senior scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said in a statement. And the atmosphere.” “In other words, September 2023 was warmer than the average July from 2001 to 2010.”
• Temperature in California: How the weather compares to the local “normal climate”.
But, as the data shows, there are still a few pockets of unusually cold conditions over the past few months — most notably California. While there have been occasional heatwaves, such as last week’s warm weather, the region has generally faced cooler-than-average conditions throughout most of the year.
This map shows temperatures during the past nine months compared to the same period in previous years.
Global temperature percentages for January to September 2023. Areas in red were warmer than average, while areas in white or blue were near or below average.
National Centers for Environmental InformationMuch of the world saw warmer than average conditions, shown in shades of red. Parts of the southern United States even experienced record warmth, indicated by bright red. These temperatures from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are based on measurements at locations around the world, with estimates of missing values.
January through September of this year is the warmest on record, averaging 59.5 degrees Fahrenheit. Another map shows that most of the world experienced above-average temperatures from 1991 to 2020.
But California stands out.
“It’s one of the few places in the Northern Hemisphere and in the world that has white or blue squares,” said Dan McEvoy, a climate scientist at the Desert Research Institute and the Western Regional Climate Center.
While other parts of the United States and the world faced extreme summer heat, California faced relatively mild conditions, continuing a pattern that began at the beginning of the year.
“There’s been kind of this persistent pattern that we haven’t seen in a while, with low pressure continuing across the region,” McEvoy said. This led to severe storms during the winter and June was colder than average. Scientists are still investigating why this year’s weather in the West has been so anomalous.
The above-average temperatures were largely driven by human-caused climate change, McEvoy said. Furthermore, El Niño conditions have brought warm temperatures to tropical Pacific waters. This in turn releases heat into the atmosphere.
And based on what the first nine months of the year have been like, there’s more than a 99% chance that 2023 will be the planet’s warmest year on record, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information.
Reach Jack Lee: jack.lee@sfchronicle.com
