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Updated: May 15, 2025

Using Generative Art to Convey Past and Future Climate Transitions
Published on: March 31, 2023
Global and regional drivers for exceptional climate extremes in 2023-2024: beyond the new normal
Shoshiro Minobe1, Erik Behrens2, Kirsten L Findell3
1Faculty of Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan.
Abstract:
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.
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