Or any other known process, according to a recent study by Mika Rantanen and Ari Laaksonen. As alarmists have repeated triumphantly, 2023 saw a big jump in average temperatures of 0.5C. But that number is well above the trend line supposedly driven by CO2 increases. So climate scientists ran their models and tried to figure out if that kind of jump could happen either due to the observed increase of CO2 or from natural variability as it’s represented in the models. And the answer is no. Whatever caused it is unknown. Even though the science is settled.
Rantanen and Laaksonen say the cause might have been the Hunga-Tonga volcano, which we’ve discussed previously. Or maybe another volcano a few years ago, or maybe the onset of a large El Niño after three years of La Niña, or maybe reductions in sulphur emissions from ships, or, well, you get the idea.
They don’t know, and they don’t claim certainty their research and data don’t justify. Climate is complicated, and the models are highly simplified and highly inaccurate. Still, to hear journalists and dogmatic scientists tell it, all the other warming, well that’s your fault. And the science is settled. Except the part where we can’t actually model what happened.
Tim Palmer's paper on water vapour may have supplied the answer; water vapour and CO2 molecules cling to each other ultimately doubling down on the CO2 effect, thereby increasing the heat block.