Global Temperatures Take A Dip; Heavy Snow Shuts Down Southern Norway; Nor'easter Looms; + 4 New Papers Find Antarctic Ice Is Doing Just Fine

“Our observations show that Antarctic ice shelves gained 661 Gt of ice mass over the past decade,” the scientists summarized.

Global Temperature Takes A Dip

We know 2023's temperature rise was natural, likely driven by the perfect storm of Hunga Tonga, El Niño and Solar Maximum — the global lower atmosphere was below baseline this time last year; CO2 levels didn't rise exponentially in 2023.

And it appears those natural forcings are now waning as global temperatures continue to show signs of a cool off.

According to the latest UAH dataset, Earth's average temperature —if you believe such a thing can even be measured— dropped -0.08C in December 2023, down to +0.83C above the multidecadal baseline.

[Dr Roy Spencer]

Time will tell where we go from here, but as El Niño and Solar Maximum continue to wane, and as the vast volume of water vapor fired into the atmosphere by Hunga Tonga dissipates (and barring another submarine eruption), 'down' looks a good bet.

It's Water Vapor, Stupid