Arguments
January sets an unexpected temperature record
Posted on 3 February 2025 by Zeke Hausfather
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink
Both 2023 and 2024 were exceptionally warm years, at just below and above 1.5C relative to preindustrial in the WMO composite of surface temperature records, respectively. While we are still working to assess the full set of drivers of this warmth, it is clear that a sizable portion of 2024’s elevated temperatures were driven by a moderately strong El Niño event that peaked in November 2023.1
For this reason many of us expect that 2025 will be cooler than both 2023 and 2024, and is unlikely to be the warmest year in the instrumental record (though it will very likely be in the top three warmest years).
However, at least at the start of the year nature seems not to be following our expectations. Global temperatures were in record territory for the first three weeks of the year in the Copernicus/ECMWF ERA5 dataset, only falling out of record territory over the past few days.
As a result, January 2025 beat the prior record set in January 2024 by a sizable margin. And unlike the prior record Januaries (2007, 2016, 2020, and 2024) there is currently no El Niño event boosting global temperatures; rather, the world is in modest La Niña conditions that should, all things being equal, result in lower global temperatures.
This means that January 2025 stands out as anomalous even by the standards of the last two years. We can see this by comparing the evolution of global temperatures after the peak of the 2023 El Nino event in the figure below (which is an update of the analysis I posted here back in November 2024).
Global temperature over the past few months have exceeded or been at the upper end of what we’ve seen after any other El Nino event in the historical record. And this analysis already removes an assumed acceleration from the surface temperature record (using a ~20 year LOWESS fit).
So what does this mean? Thankfully weather models expect global temperatures are set to drop next week as the Northern Hemisphere sharply cools, making it less likely that February will also set a new record. But an unexpected record to start things off may presage higher temperatures this year than many of us thought.
I make you the following question: if C. change is so relevant, how come every single political, industrial and social decision points out in the opposite direction?
I dont think governments, who have access to intel data, really see any urgency:
What is the impact of bringing all from china to europe, who pollutes a lot, rather than producing locally?
We have any short of food available in supermarkets all year anytime, rather than seasonal food.
A new car all the time, a new phone all the time, imposible or difficult to repair appliances, cars, phones, watches, gadgets.
I cannot see a single decision that points me in the direction, WAW THIS IS URGENT!!
All I can say, if the mounts are on fire, and my house is near...i will run. If I am not running..maybe its just a BBQ going on.
Worse, if the ones who shout run, are just selling BBQ supplies... maybe...just maybe something is off.
There are policies for EVs...that doesnt arrive for decades, battery EU legislations that are finally watered donw like the battery directive approved last year..in the end doesnt tackle the battery issue ( to generate a limited ammounts of battery types/packaging, like the standards AA, AAA, C, B).
I could go on for hours numbering wrong decisions being taken since the 90s.
All I can say, if the mounts are on fire, and my house is near...i will run. If I am not running..maybe its just a BBQ going on.
Worse, if the ones who shout run, are just selling BBQ supplies... maybe...just maybe something is off.
PericoDelosPalotes, not sure what your point is.
People have medical issues and their doctors give them advice on what to do to improve their health. Some people follow the doctor's advice, many do not. Just because people don't follow their doctor's advice does not mean the problem does not exist.
It just means there are other factors that determine how we act than the existence of a single problem, even if it is a really serious problem. Human behavior is not always logical.
PericoDelosPalotes
"I dont think governments, who have access to intel data, really see any urgency:"
I wouldnt use weak governmnet climate policies as a guide to the true severity of the climate problem. Those policies are only weak because governmnets have been captured by the fossil fuels lobby, and governments are scared of losing votes by having strong carbon taxes. Even losing a few votes can be significant. Listen to what the scientists say like Evan says.
As a shoutout to nigelj's comment
"Even losing a few votes can be significant."
Isn't it interesting that political systems are often just as delicately balanced as the biosphere. Whether in politics, personal finance, or the biosphere, success or failure is often determined by seemingly small margins.
Average annual rates of increase of CO2 are 2.5 ppm/year. That is an absolutely massive push on our delicately-balanced biosphere.
Morning,
Saying governments are captured by lobbies it is a really huge implication. We are talking industry, research, universities, education, investors, enterpreneurs, doctors, engineers...are they all captured by the fossil fuel lobby?
Saying "weak government polices" it is a bit unnacurate. Since the 90s ( although the bulk came from 2010 onwards), worldwide, we can conservative estimate around 20trillion USD has been invested in green policies. Then on top of that, Industry, in any kind of field, has invested more than that figure in developing technology of any kind..precisely in the opposite direction. That is 40 years of development in the wrong direction, and the cost of opportunity is HUGE. SMOG in many large cities can be traced already to the 80s.
Stating the patient does nothing out of doctor advices, doesnt seems like a good example.
Transport:
Cars are getting heavier, while an EU study years ago proved that the CO2 reduction goals in transport set for 2050, could be achieved TODAY, by just reducing each vehicle weight 10%. But vehicles are getting heaver and heavier. This is a trend of more than 30 years.
Hybrid cars should have been of the serial-hybrid architecture since the 90s, rather than:
a) pushing for EVs ( poor decision)
b) developing micro-hybrid useless (absolute trash)
c) developing parallel hybrid (even a prius who is an example of durability has level of complexities never seen, like having 3 electric motors)
A series-hybrid would have allowed for a very small combustion engine, ultra efficient, ultra easy to repair, same engine across many many cars and platforms, with way less moving parts, way easy on emmisions, fine tuned like a race car engine. An Idling engine just sitting there like a power generator. All without the need even for the coming of Lithium batteries. The implications (differences) are HUGE. This is no joke, we are talking a decission that could have changed where we are today massively.
Electricity generation: pushing for Solar, wind etc as if they could ever be just no more than marginal actors in most of the cases. While banning and jeopardizing Nuclear power development. We could have developed for the last 40 years thorium or simialr nuclear plants. Instead we have stick with old submarine technology from the 50s while at the same time promoting an agenda of closing them off. Now we have AI technology so electrical power hungry that they are now requiring mini nuclear plants. Its ridicolous. We just shoot ourselfes in the foot over and over and over.
Logistics: We trade everyithing, produce everything from Low income countries, that they use slave labour, children, concentration camps labour...the list can go on and on and on. Rather than local manufacturing. I watched a documentary about a lorry driver that has to deliver doughnouts from up in Scotland in the UK to Koln in Germany. REALLY?? nobody in Koln can make "doughnouts". We are not talking about 4nanometer microchips... just flour with suggar.
Ukraine war result? rather than cheap gas from Russia, so we can have energy in Europe, to develop new technologies, hopefully greener. Now we have the same gas from Russia but through many more intermediaries, through longer, more expensive and more polluting routes than just receiving them through a pipeline. And more expensive. Or even worse, being broguth cross Atlantic from the USA. That is SUPER GREEN.
Recylcing policies? another joke, but a joke that has costed 40 years of effort. Its got its opportunity cost lost.
And I can keep listing for hours wrong decisions, policies and the likes.
None of them points out to any short of sense of urgency. Even worse, is not that the patient doesnt take doctors advice, the patient has done A LOT, A LOT. All in the wrong direction.
You cannot be wrong in all, all the time, in all aspects for that long.
You can measure reality not by words but by actions, and after 40 years of words that doesnt match actions...maybe...just maybe... something is off.
[BL] As is pointed out in the comment that follows yours - most of this is off topic. Your comment violates several aspects of the Comments Policy. Please read that policy before commenting again.
More specifically:
Again, read the Comments Policy before continuing. There is a link to it above the comment box every time you log on and begin to prepare a comment.
Off-topic comments can and will be subject to moderation - deleting portions of comments, or the entire comment.
PericoDelosPalotes@5
Your barrage of comments is now far off topic from the article. I don't have time to respond to your comments. If you want to continue the discussion, please be more focused and pick a couple of things to discuss.
PericoDelosPalotes @6
Some of your comments seem interesting and valid, but some sound wrong and some are unsupported assertions, and some are off topic. I dont have time to address them all. I will only respond to those points that were directly in response to my previous comment:
You said "Saying governments are captured by lobbies it is a really huge implication. We are talking industry, research, universities, education, investors, enterpreneurs, doctors, engineers...are they all captured by the fossil fuel lobby?"
Investors and entrepreneurs and doctors for example are not really part of government, or at least not significantly, so they dont seem relevant to my point. The government does run a public education system and fossil fuels lobby has attempted to influence public education. One example of many:
"Miseducation”: How Fossil Fuel Lobbyists Push Climate Denialism to Kids in U.S. Schools"
www.democracynow.org/2021/11/19/katie_worth_climate_education_investigative_reporting
You said: "Saying "weak government polices" it is a bit unnacurate. Since the 90s ( although the bulk came from 2010 onwards), worldwide, we can conservative estimate around 20trillion USD has been invested in green policies. Then on top of that, Industry, in any kind of field, has invested more than that figure in developing technology of any kind..precisely in the opposite direction. That is 40 years of development in the wrong direction, and the cost of opportunity is HUGE. SMOG in many large cities can be traced already to the 80s."
I reiterate that government response to the climate problem in America and most other countries has been weak. Your figure of $20 trillion looks too high and you have provided no calculations or links to back up your assertion or numbers as a reference point. However lets assume $20 trillion correct for the sake of argument. Its estimated that mitigating climate change properly would cost 3% of global gdp each year (Stern Report for example) and global gdp has been about $85 trillion on average in recent decades which is mitigation of about $2.5 trillion per year. $20 trillion spent over the last 30 years is about 0.6 trillion per year well below what is required and is mostly driven by government policies, therefore it is weak. It is certainly weaker than is required.
We also know governments climate policies have been weak because emissions are still growing robustly and atmospheric CO2 has not slowed or levelled off or fallen. This is the ultimate and undeniable reference point.
Global gdp data:
www.statista.com/statistics/268750/global-gross-domestic-product-gdp/
You say: "Saying "weak government polices" it is a bit unnacurate (implying government has taken strong actions), " followed later by saying that "You can measure reality not by words but by actions, and after 40 years of words that doesnt match actions...maybe...just maybe... something is off" which is all completely contradictory. You cant claim government is strong on climate change, and also effectively claim that government action has been weak. But thank's for your comments.
Afternoon,
I shall stick to replying to your questions as an assurance of following an on-topic conversation.
Glad to provide more data regarding the global cumulative expenditure and to put it into perspective
Here links for the ball park estimation:
https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/publication/global-landscape-of-climate-finance-a-decade-of-data/
https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/publication/global-landscape-of-climate-finance-2024/
https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/publication/global-landscape-of-climate-finance-2021/
Sector Approx. Annual Budget
U.S. Federal Discretionary Budget ~$2 trillion
Global Energy Investments ~$2.8 trillion
Global Military Spending ~$2.2 trillion
Global R&D Spending ~$2.4 trillion
European Healthcare Spending ~$2–2.5 trillion
Global AI/IT Spending (Cloud, AI, Cybers.) ~$2 trillion (forecasted)
Summary of the above and framing:
Current global Climate Change expenditure is in par with Energy investment or Military one GLOBALLY (around 2Trillion USD yearly).
Still, all the policies applied, the technologies developed and the actionables all row in the opposite direction (and I refer you to read the list of examples I provided in my previous post considered as unsupported barrage) to What I would consider aiming at the solving of an URGENT RISK.
I have been designing EV powertrains for over a decade in major Car OEMs, I know the reality of the technology from the
Horses mouth, I am not coming from watching a few denialist documentaries in YouTube.
2T USD budget is big words: only met by a few global sectors, economies or entities that can operate in that scale. Any Enterprise with that budget and such poor results would need a proper investigation or enquiry.
It is not that the climate change government policies has been weak, its even worse, they have been strong but in the opposite direction.
With due respect...maybe, there is a solid reason for people to be skeptical about Climate Change and policies applied.
[BL] Responding to questions that were asked as the result of an off-topic comment does not magically make the response on-topic. The topic of this blog post is recent temperature records, not climate financing.
Unfortunately, since it is still very difficult to understand what point you are trying to make, it is difficult to point you to a thread where your comments would be on-topic.
In the moderation comment on your comment #5, you were told you need to provide references when you post claims such as "20 trillion dollars". The full context of your quote was [emphasis added] " we can conservative estimate around 20trillion USD has been invested in green policies." You have now provided some links, but:
With due respect, your closing comment that "...maybe, there is a solid reason for people to be skeptical about Climate Change and policies applied." suggests that you are not very clear in your own mind of the difference between climate science (the physics of climate and how we expect climate to change due to increasing CO2) and policy responses to that science.
Please try to do better. You need to be far more explicit with respect to what claim you are discussing, what you don't agree with, and what evidence you want people to pay attention to.
PericoDelosPalotes&8
Thanks for providing more supporting information.
However, I am still not sure what you are trying to say. Are you saying that you don't think there is a climate emergency? Please give a clear indication of your position and a concise reason for your position. Here is the evidence that I point to indicating that we are in a climate emergency.
Currently atmospheric CO2 concentrations are increasing, on average, about 2.5 ppm/year. There are many sites that report this, such as the NOAA site.
CO2 increasing at this rate indicates a climate emergency. You don't need to look any further than this statistic.
PericoDelosPalotes @8
You claimed @ 5 that global spending on climate mitigation was $20 trillion since the 1990s. None of the information you have provided in your comment @ 8 substantiates that.
You now claim that global spending on climate mitigation is about 2 trillion per year and global military spending per year is 2 trillion. This does not demonstrate that globally government spending on climate mitigation is strong. Many people would claim that what countries spend on the military is too weak. Its all subjective.
You have to measure the strength of the government climate response against the required goals and the required spending as I outlined previously. By that measure governments response to the climate problem is weak. Sorry if you cant see that.
Your claims about EVs not being a solution to the climate problem and that hybrids are better (paraphrasing) are simply assertions with no hard evidence or links provided.
You said @7 "Cars are getting heavier, while an EU study years ago proved that the CO2 reduction goals in transport set for 2050, could be achieved TODAY, by just reducing each vehicle weight 10%. But vehicles are getting heaver and heavier. This is a trend of more than 30 years."
No link provided. I googled this information and the only reference that came up is your own comment on this website. People wont believe the study exists unless you can provide a link. And we need to see the study for full information and context of exactly what they are assuming and measuring.
Regarding your comments on the weight of ICE cars. Reducing the weight of ICE cars by 10% might help a bit but it only reduces emissions about 10% so something better is needed such as EVs. They are zero emissions (after about 50,000 kms to allow for manufacturing emissions). Hybrids are better than ICE vehicles but they are definitely not zero emissions no matter how sophisticated the technology. And sophisticated hybrid technology costs a lot of money. So your anti EV rhetoric and promotion of hybrids as a better solution is not that persuasive to me.
PericoDelosPalotes @8
Sorry I misinterpreted your reference to global climate finance flows. IMO it does look like the world may have spent very roughly 20 trillion on climate mitigation since the 1990s. However the moderators comments on the global finance flows issue certainly is a concern I also have. And none of this validates your claim that governments response to the climate issue is not weak.
In related news the air temperature at the North Pole rose above zero degrees Celsius for several hours on February 2nd:
https://GreatWhiteCon.info/2025/02/facts-about-the-arctic-in-february-2025/
Huge waves north of Svalbard pushed back the sea ice edge on the Atlantic side of the Arctic Ocean:
Sea ice extent is only just starting to recover from the shock: