It’s definitely a contributing factor. Ironically, the shift away from coal and toward natural gas–which is “cleaner” from the perspective of GHGs–is also a significant contributor, as coal produces way more aerosols. The bigger deal this year is probably the fairly strong El Nino that we’ve got brewing for the first time in several years (2017 was the last significant one). You can see the pretty significant sea surface temperature anomaly between the coast of South America and the central Pacific. Strong El Ninos tend to cause higher-than-normal global average surface temperatures, and strong La Ninas tend to cause lower-than-normal global average surface temperatures. Since we’ve been in a pretty strong La Nina phase over the last few years, the average temperature has (in a sense) been artificially low.
What’s your take on the weather being unusually bad this year and that correlated with the banning of some container ship exhaust products?
It’s definitely a contributing factor. Ironically, the shift away from coal and toward natural gas–which is “cleaner” from the perspective of GHGs–is also a significant contributor, as coal produces way more aerosols. The bigger deal this year is probably the fairly strong El Nino that we’ve got brewing for the first time in several years (2017 was the last significant one). You can see the pretty significant sea surface temperature anomaly between the coast of South America and the central Pacific. Strong El Ninos tend to cause higher-than-normal global average surface temperatures, and strong La Ninas tend to cause lower-than-normal global average surface temperatures. Since we’ve been in a pretty strong La Nina phase over the last few years, the average temperature has (in a sense) been artificially low.