Person
Head of long-range forecasting at the UK Met Office and a climate-modelling physicist specializing in seasonal and decadal climate prediction.
Copernicus logged 21.10 C on Aug. 22, one hundredth of a degree above March 2024. The timing, not the margin, is what should move planning assumptions.
Perspective Coverage
3 publishersReality
The forecast signal is stronger than anything in the record since 1950. The observation underneath it is 1.4C, and that gap is the part worth watching.
Reality
Copernicus says the emissions match previous major El Nino years for the date. The 1997 analogue reached 2.5 gigatonnes of CO2, roughly four months of global fossil fuel burning at then-current rates.
Reality
Subsurface heat content has passed the 1997-98 super event with the peak still months away, while the surface index has not. The furthest-out year any quoted scientist names is 2026.
Reality
The Met Office expects the tropical Pacific above 3C in November, and one aggregated forecast says 3.9C. The global temperature consequence lands in 2027, which is still a planning cycle away.
Reality