The cloud ceiling exacerbated warming, especially in Western Europe

Terrestrial The average temperature broke previous records in 2023 and was 1.5 degrees Celsius higher than in pre -industrial time.

This was influenced by, among other things, greenhouse gases from human activity and the El Niño phenomenon that warms surface water in the eastern Pacific.

Also, the increased activity of the sun and the Hunga-Elga volcanic eruption in January 2021 could bring their own addition to record temperature.

However, the reading of 2023 did not explain 0.2 degrees Celsius in previous models, although all these factors were taken into account.

Now The German Alfred Wegener Institute’s research team found a possible explanation for most of the previously mystery as they analyzed the measurement data for satellites.

“That 0.2 unexplained rise in the average temperature of 2023 is currently the most discussed topics in climate research,” says In the Science Science Magazine published research led Helge Goessling Phys.orgsite.

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“Accelerating development is expected.”

New The explanation is that the reflection capacity of our planet was at a record low. This means that the smaller part of the heat in the ground was reflected back into space.

The level of the planet’s reflection capacity in 2023 was visible in both NASA’s satellite data and the observation data of the European Medium Weather Forecasts, which was combined with climate models. This is possibly the lowest level since 1940.

Reflection capacity has fallen due to the dwindling of the northern ice cover since the 1970s. Since 2016, the situation has been exacerbated by the decline in sea ice outside Antarctica.

“According to our analysis, however, the reduction in the reflection of the polar regions explains only 15 percent of recent overall work,” Gessling says.

Therefore Attention turned into another trend that has recently prevailed, the roof of low -in -the -top reflection clouds. They have decreased especially in northern medium widths and tropics.

The trend is even emphasized in the last ten years in the eastern North Atlantic, which also measured the largest temperature deviations in 2023.

The lower clouds do not have the same greenhouse effect as the higher clouds. So they only reflect sunlight away from the ground.

Therefore, their reduction will inevitably lead to a lower reflection of solar radiation and thus warming the globe.

But Which lower clouds have reduced?

One possible explanation is the decline in human aerosols, for example, as a result of stricter emission restrictions in shipping.

The tightening of sulfur emissions came into effect in 2020. The aerosols not only reflect the radiation itself, but also act as condensation centers in cloud formation.

Investigator Goessling However, it does not believe that this is enough for an explanation. Researchers suspect that global warming itself causes a reduction in lower clouds.

“If warming plays a big role in the loss of lower clouds and the reduction in reflection, as some climate models predict, an accelerating development is expected.”