by ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — For the eighth straight month in January, the world was the warmest on record, according to the European climate agency. That was evident in the northern United States, where about 1,000 people golfed last month in snow-starved Minneapolis during what the state is calling the “Lost Winter of 2023-24.”
For the first time, global temperatures pushed past the internationally agreed warming threshold for a full 12-month period, with February 2023 to January 2024 running 2.74 degrees Fahrenheit (1.52 degrees Celsius) warmer than pre-industrial levels, according to the Copernicus Service on Climate Change European Space Agency. That’s the highest 12-month average global temperature on record, Copernicus reported.
Global heat records have been broken every month since last June.
January 2024 broke the old record from 2020 for the warmest first month of the year by 0.22 degrees Fahrenheit (0.12 degrees Celsius) and was 3 degrees Fahrenheit (1.66 degrees Celsius) warmer than the late 1800s, the benchmark for temperatures before burning fossil fuels. . Although January was the hottest on record, the level above normal was lower than the previous six months, according to Copernicus data.
Climate scientists blame a combination of human warming from burning fossil fuels and the natural but temporary El Nino warming of parts of the Pacific Ocean, saying greenhouse gases play a much bigger role than nature. This is the time of year when El Nino warming often hits, said Texas A&M University climate scientist Andrew Dessler.
“This is interrupting and not interrupting. After all, if you stick your finger in a light socket and you’re shocked, it’s bad news, sure, but what did you expect?” Dessler said.
Just because the globe exceeded the 1.5 degree warming threshold for 12 months, that’s not what scientists mean by reaching the 1.5 degree warming limit, said Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald, co-author of a report United Nations scientific report on the harms associated with. more than more than 1.5 degrees. The 1.5 degree limit, adopted in the 2015 Paris climate agreement, is more than a 30-year average.
“These are much more than numbers, degrees and records – they translate into real impacts on our farms, families and communities from unprecedented heat, changing growing seasons and rising sea levels,” said Kathie Dello, Climatologist North Carolina State.
International Falls, a Minnesota city on the Canadian border that prides itself as the “nation’s icebox,” recorded its first ever January high of 50 degrees on January 31, when the temperature hit 53 Fahrenheit (11.7 Celsius). Minneapolis has already set a record for the number of 50 degree days for a winter.
About 70% of Minnesota is currently bare ground, with most of the state so far receiving less than 25% of normal snowfall.
Authorities have rescued a dozen ice anglers from normal lakes in northern Minnesota after ice floes broke off and carried them away. Open water and unsafe ice forced the annual Art Shanty Projects festival on Lake Harriet in Minneapolis to be cut short in January.
Montgomery National Golf Club, about 45 miles (72 kilometers) south of Minneapolis, should be blanketed in a thick layer of snow this time of year. Instead, it is doing a booming business.
“We did about a thousand golfers in January. If we only had one golfer, that would be a record,” said owner Greg McKush. “After today, we’ll have about a thousand golfers for February, which was unheard of.”
McKush said it opened two Saturdays ago and figures it could stay open through the winter if temperatures continue to reach at least the 40s.
The fairways seem to be trying to green up, he said, and a lot of the frost has come off the ground. Most golfers are telling him that the conditions are “better than expected.”
In Wisconsin, ranked fourth in the US in maple syrup production, the mild winter weather prompted many farms in the northern and central regions of the state to start tapping their trees in mid-January – up to two months earlier than usual , depending on the area, said. Theresa Baroun, executive director of the Wisconsin Maple Syrup Producers Association.
“There’s a wide range of the state that’s tapped and syrup is already being cooked. It is very unusual. This is one of the most unusual weather patterns to start the maple season that we’ve seen,” she said Wednesday. “In order for maple trees to run, it must be frozen at night, beyond freezing during the day. And this weather was perfect for running the maple trees.”
Baroun, whose family has about 1,200 maple trees at their Maple Sweet Dairy in De Pere, Wisconsin, just south of Green Bay, said the farm started cooking sap this week and is the earliest in her family can remember since production began in 1964.
The February sturgeon season on Michigan’s Black Lake was canceled for the first time due to a lack of ice for safe fishing.
At Isle Royal National Park, an island in Lake Superior between Michigan, Minnesota and Canada, scientists were unable to conduct their annual count of wolves and moose because the ice was so weak that they could not fly ski down to reach it.
One of the stranger consequences is the early emergence of ticks. The Minnesota Metropolitan Mosquito Control District reported its first deer tick of 2024 on Monday, posting its horrible photo on social media of a tick in a vial against the background of February 5 on a calendar. District officials said they haven’t found any mosquito larvae yet – but it’s not for lack of looking.
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Karnowski reported from St. Paul, Minnesota, and Borenstein of Kensington, Maryland. Detroit’s Ed White and Indianapolis’ Rick Callahan added.
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Read more about AP’s climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/climate-and-environment
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Seth Borenstein and Steve Karnowski continued on X at @borenbears and @skarnowski
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