It is getting warmer, we are witnessing more and more extreme climate events. Where and how will the climate change... Climatologist Nikolay Petkov speaks to FACTI.
- Mr. Petkov, are we “slowly boiling“ on Earth, since each of the last few years has set new temperature records compared to the previous one?
- In a sense, you could say so. The current warming is sharp on a geological scale, but gradual enough that we do not feel it so strongly within the framework of human life. The daily newspaper “Guardian“ uses the term global heating instead of “global warming“ to draw attention to the danger of climate change. The fact is that the warming of the Earth's air continues and seems to be accelerating. According to some scientists, the warming is faster than expected, and it is not entirely clear why.
- 11 of the 12 months of 2024 will register temperatures more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels… And this is because…
- Over the past 2 years, we have observed the El Niño phenomenon. It occurs when the temperature of seawater in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean is higher than usual, and thus the usual air transport regime is reversed. The effects are strongest in the regions in and around the Pacific Ocean, with droughts occurring in some and more rainfall in other areas.
In years with El Niño, global temperatures are usually higher, which, combined with the general warming trend, increases the likelihood of record-breaking warm months and years.
- 2024 is registered as the hottest year in the history of meteorological observations. It surpasses the previous maximum of 2023 and is 1.6° warmer than the average for the late 19th century. Is the trend reversible?
- By gradually stopping emissions to zero, humanity will stabilize global temperatures and over the centuries they will gradually decrease. We are still far from this situation.
Various measures, known as geoengineering, are also possible, in which practices and technologies with so-called negative emissions can be implemented.
This could be done by sucking carbon out of the air, but at this stage these technologies are in the initial phase of development and it will take decades until they become sufficiently effective, large-scale and cost-effective to have a tangible effect on emissions, and at this stage this is not guaranteed.
There are also proposals to reflect sunlight by dispersing sulfur aerosols in the stratosphere (the layer between 11 km and 50 km in height), which would very quickly lower the temperature, but this does not address the emissions, which are dangerous even without the temperature factor, since we are changing the composition of the atmosphere and acidifying the oceans. At the same time, this does not stimulate the reduction of emissions. The reduction in sunlight may have other side effects on plants or rainfall.
- The long-term warming trend is mainly due to the human factor, but we heard from the new US President Donald Trump that the United States is withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. He said that the US will not crush its economy while China pollutes and produces cheap goods. In this sense, where does the vision of climate change stand?
- Unfortunately, the US policy of ignoring climate change is not new and somewhat depends on the specific president. The US did not ratify the 1998 Kyoto Protocol, the agreement that preceded the Paris one. However, in absolute terms, US emissions have been decreasing in recent decades, but compared to European countries, the country has a much larger carbon footprint.
The fact is that the European economy seems to lag behind that of the US in indicators such as GDP and GDP per capita, but this is not because of green policies - Joe Biden's mandate was proof that the US can also implement such policies, such as those of the Inflation Protection Act, and its economy can continue to grow rapidly.
Despite everything, Trump must be at least somewhat aware of the negative consequences of climate change, given that in 2009 along with other businessmen, he supported a call in the “New York Times“, which urged then-President Barack Obama to take action on climate change.
Even Trump's close ally Elon Musk has argued that at some point the excessive amount of carbon in the air will have negative biological consequences, in the same way that we start to get headaches or become sleepy if we stand too long in a crowded room without ventilation due to the accumulation of carbon dioxide.
Neglect and countermeasures are dangerous, even tragic, but reality will eventually knock on the door. The good news is that green technologies have become and will probably continue to become more profitable on the market, which will naturally lead to further reductions in emissions.
- In Bulgaria, 2024 is also the warmest since at least 1930, with an average temperature of about 2.1° above climate norms. We can't be an exception, right?
- We are certainly not an exception, and especially in the last 15 years, temperature anomalies in the country have become more noticeable. The region of Bulgaria is among the most affected by climate change in Europe, with the greatest risk of heat waves, droughts, and intense rainfall and flooding in our country.
- Is the climate in our country becoming like that of Greece?
- I remember that when I was little I read a publication that said that the climate of Southern Bulgaria in the future is expected to increasingly resemble that of Northern Greece, and that of Northern Bulgaria - that of Southern Bulgaria. It is inevitable that this will happen to some extent with continued warming - a shift of climate zones north along the parallels and in altitude.
At the same time, we cannot be completely like Greece, because it is not known to what extent we will limit climate warming in the future, and even more importantly, we have different geographical features than those of Greece - relief, proximity to the Black Sea, etc., which will not change with increasing temperatures.
- And the fact that we are increasingly witnessing extreme weather events - the floods in Valencia and the storms in Central Europe, which took lives and caused serious material damage, what should this tell us...
- With climate warming, unfortunately, the probability of extreme weather events increases, especially those associated with high temperatures and intense precipitation. Higher temperature means more energy, and
according to the laws of physics, for every degree of warming of the Earth's temperature, the moisture in the atmosphere increases by about 7%.
This leads to more frequent and/or more intense cases of extreme precipitation.
- Seawater in the extrapolar regions is also warming. What values are reported there?
- The average annual sea surface temperature outside the polar latitudes last year was estimated at 20.87°C, or 0.51°C above the average for the period 1991 - 2020. Not only the temperature is record-breaking, but also the amount of heat in the oceans. We must bear in mind that the oceans, which cover 70% of the planet, absorb over 90% of the energy that accumulates as a result of the greenhouse effect, which mitigates warming. For this reason, record warming and water energy are another cause for concern.
- Sea ice in 2024 reached alarmingly low levels in the polar regions. How fast is it melting? In recent decades, since satellite observations began, the amount of sea ice in the Arctic has been decreasing, and in the last 10 years this trend has also begun in the ice sheet around Antarctica.
Interestingly, since the record in September 2012, when the area of sea ice in the Arctic shrank to just over 3 million square kilometers, there has been no new record for a record low level of sea ice in the Arctic in September (when the ice is at its lowest level of the year). But overall, the trend is decreasing. Ice in other months is also important - for example, the smallest area measured for July was recorded in 2020, but it is larger than that of September 2012.
In its 2021 report The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns that there is a 66% chance of observing complete melting of the ice in September before 2050.
- In 2024, meteorologists increasingly talked to us about La Niña and El Niño. What to expect this year…
- We are currently in the La Niña phase, when the water temperature around the Equator in the Pacific Ocean is lower than usual. La Niña is expected to continue in the coming months, which is why the global temperature will most likely not be as high as in 2024. However, the expectations are that 2025 will most likely be the warmest since the beginning of observations.
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Nikolai Petkov graduated from the Master's degree in “Meteorology“ at the Faculty of Physics of the Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski“. His master's thesis is on the topic of “Climatic indices - analysis of the climate over Southeast Europe in the recent past and present“. He works in the environmental association “For the Earth“ as an expert and coordinator. He is currently pursuing a master's degree in “Integrated Climate System Sciences” at the University of Hamburg in Germany, author in Klimateka.