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    Indicators of Global Climate Change 2023: annual update of key indicators of the state of the climate system and human influence


    Forster, Piers M., Smith, Chris, Walsh, Tristram, Lamb, William F., Lamboll, Robin, Hall, Bradley, Hauser, Mathias, Ribes, Aurélien, Rosen, Debbie, Gillett, Nathan P., Palmer, Matthew D., Rogelj, Joeri, von Schuckmann, Karina, Trewin, Blair, Allen, Myles, Andrew, Robbie, Betts, Richard A., Borger, Alex, Boyer, Tim, Broersma, Jiddu A., Buontempo, Carlo, Burgess, Samantha, Cagnazzo, Chiara, Cheng, Lijing, Friedlingstein, Pierre, Gettelman, Andrew, Gütschow, Johannes, Ishii, Masayoshi, Jenkins, Stuart, Lan, Xin, Morice, Colin, Mühle, Jens, Kadow, Christopher, Kennedy, John, Killick, Rachel E., Krummel, Paul B., Minx, Jan C., Myhre, Gunnar, Naik, Vaishali, Peters, Glen P., Pirani, Anna, Pongratz, Julia, Schleussner, Carl-Friedrich, Seneviratne, Sonia I., Szopa, Sophie, Thorne, Peter, Kovilakam, Mahesh V. M., Majamäki, Elisa, Jalkanen, Jukka-Pekka, van Marle, Margreet, Hoesly, Rachel M., Rohde, Robert, Schumacher, Dominik, van der Werf, Guido, Vose, Russell, Zickfeld, Kirsten, Zhang, Xuebin, Masson-Delmotte, Valérie and Zhai, Panmao (2024) Indicators of Global Climate Change 2023: annual update of key indicators of the state of the climate system and human influence. Earth System Science Data, 16 (6). pp. 2625-2658. ISSN 1866-3516

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    Abstract

    Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessments are the trusted source of scientific evidence for climate negotiations taking place under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Evidence-based decision-making needs to be informed by up-to-date and timely information on key indicators of the state of the climate system and of the human influence on the global climate system. However, successive IPCC reports are published at intervals of 5–10 years, creating potential for an information gap between report cycles. We follow methods as close as possible to those used in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) Working Group One (WGI) report.We compile monitoring datasets to produce estimates for key climate indicators related to forcing of the climate system: emissions of greenhouse gases and short-lived climate forcers, greenhouse gas concentrations, radiative forcing, the Earth’s energy imbalance, surface temperature changes, warming attributed to human activities, the remaining carbon budget, and estimates of global temperature extremes. The purpose of this effort, grounded in an open-data, open-science approach, is to make annually updated reliable global climate indicators available in the public domain (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11388387, Smith et al., 2024a). As they are traceable to IPCC report methods, they can be trusted by all parties involved in UNFCCC negotiations and help convey wider understanding of the latest knowledge of the climate system and its direction of travel. The indicators show that, for the 2014–2023 decade average, observed warming was 1.19 [1.06 to 1.30] °C,of which 1.19 [1.0 to 1.4] °C was human-induced. For the single-year average, human-induced warming reached 1.31 [1.1 to 1.7] °C in 2023 relative to 1850–1900. The best estimate is below the 2023-observed warming record of 1.43 [1.32 to 1.53] °C, indicating a substantial contribution of internal variability in the 2023 record. Humaninduced warming has been increasing at a rate that is unprecedented in the instrumental record, reaching 0.26[0.2–0.4] °C per decade over 2014–2023. This high rate of warming is caused by a combination of net greenhouse gas emissions being at a persistent high of 53+-5:4 GtCO2e yr-1
    Item Type: Article
    Additional Information: This research has been supported by the HORIZON EUROPE Framework Programme, HORIZON EUROPE Innovative Europe (grant nos. 820829, 101081395,and 821003), the H2020 European Research Council (grant no. 951542), the Research Councils UK (grant no. NE/T009381/1),and the UK Engineering and Physical Research Council (grant no. EP/V000772/1). Acknowledgements: Chris Smith, Matthew D. Palmer, Colin Morice, Rachel E. Killick and Richard A. Betts were supported by the Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme funded by DSIT. Peter Thorne was supported by Co-Centre award number 22/CC/11103. The Co-Centre award is managed by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), Northern Ireland’s Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and supported via the UK’s International Science Partnerships Fund (ISPF) and the Irish Government’s Shared Island initiative.
    Keywords: climate change indicators; human influence; emissions of greenhouse gases; global warming;
    Academic Unit: Faculty of Social Sciences > Geography
    Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Institutes > Irish Climate Analysis and Research Units, ICARUS
    Item ID: 18692
    Identification Number: 10.5194/essd-16-2625-2024
    Depositing User: Peter Thorne
    Date Deposited: 26 Jun 2024 18:59
    Journal or Publication Title: Earth System Science Data
    Publisher: Copernicus
    Refereed: Yes
    Related URLs:
    URI: https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/id/eprint/18692
    Use Licence: This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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