365 Days of Climate Awareness 170 – 2018 State of the World Climate

2018 World Climate Data

• Global atmospheric CO₂ concentration: 407.62 ppm, +2.40 ppm from 2017
• Surface air temperature anomaly: +0.82°C/1.48°F, 7^th all-time 1880-2021
• Precipitation 22.5 (0.4 in) mm below 1961-1990 global average 1033 mm (40.7 in)
• Global mean sea level 48.3 mm above 1993-2008 average, +4.23 mm from 2017
• Antarctic ozone hole: max. area 24.8 million km²; minimum O₃ 102 DU (Dobson Units)
• ENSO: Weak La Niña early, neutral through summer, weak El Niño late
• NAO: Positive early, negative late

Larger Version

Global Conditions

• Above-average temperatures:  The Caribbean; South America; western and southern Africa; western Indian Ocean islands; Europe except for the Iberian Peninsula; the Middle East; Siberia; Mongolia; China; Japan; India; Australia
• Below-average temperatures: Northern & eastern Africa; Russia
• Above-average precipitation: Southern Africa; western Indian Ocean islands; the Iberian Peninsula; the Middle East; northern China
• Below-average precipitation: Northern and southern South America; northern Africa; western Europe; Europe except for the Iberian Peninsula; India; Pakistan; Iran; northeastern Siberia; Australia

Heat waves struck many parts of the globe in 2018, including continental Europe from spring until late fall, with record-breaking temperatures in several countries including Germany and France. Antarctica also saw record warmth during austral summer throughout its eastern plateau, where temperatures reached an anomalously high -47°C (-52°F) at the Amundsen-Scott station.

Frigid by the standards of almost anywhere else on earth, but for the coldest, driest place of them all, not so much! This (relative) heat wave was part of the trend in recent years for east Antarctica to gain snow and ice mass, as rising temperatures and humidity, though still far below freezing, increase the amount of snow, even as western Antarctica rapidly sheds ice. This happens increasingly by means of huge tabular icebergs, large plate-form fragments of shelves which break loose from ice shelves.

Unlike the smaller bergs which look like mounds or hills floating through the water--and are easily prone to rolling over as they melt--tabular bergs are stable due to their great breadth relative to their depth (10 or 100:1 or more). They can be larger in area than the state of Rhode Island (which is sometimes used fancifully as a unit of reference among climate scientists). Though they usually remain south of 52° due to the Southern Ocean current which runs around Antarctica, in recent years they have been spotted by ships as far north as 37°S.

Tomorrow: 2019 state of the climate, North America.

Be brave, and be well.