Global Warming Has Accelerated: Are the United Nations and the Public Well-Informed?

Global temperature leaped more than 0.4°C (0.7°F) during the past two years, the 12-month average peaking in August 2024 at +1.6°C relative to the temperature at the beginning of last century (the 1880-1920 average). This temperature jump was spurred by one of the periodic tropical El Niño warming events, but many Earth scientists were baffled by the magnitude of the global warming, which was twice as large as expected for the weak 2023-2024 El Niño. We find that most of the other half of the warming was caused by a restriction on aerosol emissions by ships, which was imposed in 2020 by the International Maritime Organization to combat the effect of aerosol pollutants on human health. Aerosols are small…