the start of an informative piece now running on the ABC News app.
"The world has been its hottest on record for 10 months straight. Scientists can't fully explain why"
By weather reporter Tyne Logan
"In short: Leading climate scientists say there is a margin to the extreme heat the world has experienced over the past year that can't be explained by global warming or known climate drivers.
"All predictions for the global temperature increase by global climate institutions fell way short of the actual number of 1.44 degrees Celsius.
"What's next? Scientists say the coming summer in the northern hemisphere will give clues to if it's just a "blip" or part of a worrying pattern.
"One of the world's leading climate scientists says the world could be in "uncharted territory", with the researchers unable to fully explain why the world has been breaking heat records to such extremes for 10 months straight.
"Last month was the hottest March on record, marking the 10th month in a row to reach that title, according to the European Union's key climate service Copernicus.
" In Europe, the temperature for March was 2.12 degrees Celsius above the historical average, marking the second-warmest March on record for the continent.
"Around the rest of the globe, temperatures were furthest above average over parts of Antarctica, Greenland, eastern North America, eastern Russia, Central America, parts of South America, and southern Australia.The continuation of record-breaking heat comes after 2023 was officially declared the hottest year on record, by a long way.
"NASA's senior climate advisor Gavin Schmidt says while climate change and the onset of El Niño explain a significant portion of last year's heat, together with other contributing factors, there is still a margin of heat at the top that can't be explained.
"He said that was concerning."If we can't explain what's going on, then that has real consequences for what we can say is going to happen in the future," Dr Schmidt said.
"Predictions 'failed ugly'
"For about a decade, he and other climate science institutes have been making predictions of global temperatures for the year ahead. Each has a slightly different method for doing this.
"Generally, it's done by looking at the baseline of global warming that the world is starting the year on, and then factoring in known climate drivers.
"But all of those predictions for 2023 fell short of what occurred – the closest prediction was still almost 0.2 degrees Celsius off the mark."
