STATE OF THE CLIMATE IN 2021

Jessica Blunden, Tim Boyer, Robert J.H. Dunn, Jessicca Allen, Gregory Hammer, S. Elizabeth Love-Brotak, Deborah J. Misch, Laura Ohlmann, Deborah B. Riddle, Sara W. Veasey, Melanie Ades, Robert Adler, Freya Aldred, R. P. Allan, John Anderson, Orlane Anneville, Yasuyuki Aono, Anthony Argüez, Carlo Arosio, John A. AugustineCesar Azorin-Molina, Jonathan Barichivich, Aman Basu, Hylke E. Beck, Nicolas Bellouin, Angela Benedetti, Kevin Blagrave, Stephen Blenkinsop, Olivier Bock, Xavier Bodin, Michael G. Bosilovich, Olivier Boucher, Gerald Bove, Dennis Buechler, Stefan A. Buehler, Laura Carrea, Kai Lan Chang, Hanne H. Christiansen, John R. Christy, Eui Seok Chung, Laura M. Ciasto, Melanie Coldewey-Egbers, Owen R. Cooper, Richard C. Cornes, Curt Covey, Thomas Cropper, Molly Crotwell, Diego Cusicanqui, Sean M. Davis, Richard A.M. de Jeu, Doug Degenstein, Reynald Delaloye, Markus G. Donat, Wouter A. Dorigo, Imke Durre, Geoff S. Dutton, Gregory Duveiller, James W. Elkins, Thomas W. Estilow, David Fereday, Johannes Flemming, Michael J. Foster, Stacey M. Frith, Lucien Froidevaux, Martin Füllekrug, Judith Garforth, Jay Garg, Matthew Gentry, Nadine Gobron, Steven Goodman, Qiqi Gou, Nikolay Granin, Mauro Guglielmin, Sebastian Hahn, Leopold Haimberger, Brad D. Hall, Ian Harris, Debbie L. Hemming, Martin Hirschi, Shu Pen Ho, Robert Holzworth, Filip Hrbáček, Daan Hubert, Petra Hulsman, Dale F. Hurst, Antje Inness, Ketil Isaksen, Viju O. John, Philip D. Jones, Robert Junod, Andreas Kääb, Johannes W. Kaiser, Viktor Kaufmann, Andreas Kellerer-Pirklbauer, Elizabeth C. Kent, Richard Kidd, Hyungiun Kim, Zak Kipling, Akash Koppa, Jan Henning L'Abée-Lund, Xin Lan, Kathleen O. Lantz, David Lavers, Norman G. Loeb, Diego Loyola, Remi Madelon, Hilmar J. Malmquist, Wlodzimierz Marszelewski, Michael Mayer, Matthew F. McCabe, Tim R. McVicar, Carl A. Mears, Annette Menzel, Christopher J. Merchant, John B. Miller, Diego G. Miralles, Stephen A. Montzka, Colin Morice, Leander Mösinger, Jens Mühle, Julien P. Nicolas, Jeannette Noetzli, Tiina Nõges, Ben Noll, John O'Keefe, Tim J. Osborn, Taejin Park, Cecile Pellet, Maury S. Pelto, Sarah E. Perkins-Kirkpatrick, Coda Phillips, Stephen Po-Chedley, Lorenzo Polvani, Wolfgang Preimesberger, Colin Price, Merja Pulkkanen, Dominik G. Rains, William J. Randel, Samuel Rémy, Lucrezia Ricciardulli, Andrew D. Richardson, David A. Robinson, Matthew Rodell, Nemesio J. Rodríguez-Fernández, Karen H. Rosenlof, Chris Roth, Alexei Rozanov, This Rutishäuser, Parnchai Sawaengphokhai, Verena Schenzinger, Robert W. Schlegel, Udo Schneider, Sapna Sharma, Lei Shi, Adrian J. Simmons, Carolina Siso, Brian J. Soden, Viktoria Sofieva, Tim H. Sparks, Stackhouse, Ryan Stauffer, Wolfgang Steinbrecht, Andrea K. Steiner, Kenton Stewart, Pietro Stradiotti, Dimitri A. Streletskiy, Hagen Telg, Stephen J. Thackeray, Emmanuel Thibert, Michael Todt, Daisuke Tokuda, Kleareti Tourpali, Mari R. Tye, Ronald van Der A, Robin van der Schalie, Gerard van der Schrier, Mendy van der Vliet, Guido R. van der Werf, Arnold van Vliet, Jean Paul Vernier, Isaac J. Vimont, Katrina Virts, Sebastiàn Vivero, Holger Vömel, Russell S. Vose, Ray H.J. Wang, Markus Weber, David Wiese, Jeanette D. Wild, Kate M. Willett, Earle Williams, Takmeng Wong, R. I. Woolway, Xungang Yin, Ye Yuan, Lin Zhao, Xinjia Zhou, Jerry R. Ziemke, Markus Ziese, Ruxandra M. Zotta, Francis Bringas, Ivona Cetinić, Don P. Chambers, Lijing Cheng, Shenfu Dong, Richard A. Feely, Baylor Fox-Kemper, Eleanor Frajka-Williams, Bryan A. Franz, Yao Fu, Meng Gao, John Gilson, Gustavo Goni, Benjamin D. Hamlington, Helene T. Hewitt, William R. Hobbs, Zeng Zhen Hu, Boyin Huang, Svetlana Jevrejeva, William E. Johns, Gregory C. Johnson, Sato Katsunari, John J. Kennedy, Marion Kersalé, Rachel E. Killick, Eric Leuliette, Ricardo Locarnini, M. Susan Lozier, Rick Lumpkin, John M. Lyman, Mark A. Merrifield, Alexey Mishonov, Gary T. Mitchum, Ben I. Moat, R. Steven Nerem, Dirk Notz, Renellys C. Perez, Sarah G. Purkey, Darren Rayner, James Reagan, Claudia Schmid, David A. Siegel, David A. Smeed, Paul W. Stackhouse, William Sweet, Philip R. Thompson, Denis L. Volkov, Rik Wanninkhof, Robert A. Weller, Caihong Wen, Toby K. Westberry, Matthew J. Widlansky, Josh K. Willis, Lisan Yu, Huai Min Zhang, Adam Allgood, Emily J. Becker, Eric S. Blake, Francis G. Bringas, Suzana J. Camargo, Lin Chen, Caio A.S. Coelho, Howard J. Diamond, Nicolas Fauchereau, Stanley B. Goldenberg, Michael S. Halpert, Qiong He, Philip J. Klotzbach, John A. Knaff, Arun Kumar, Chris W. Landsea, Michelle L'Heureux, I. I. Lin, Andrew M. Lorrey, Jing Jia Luo, Andrew D. Magee, Richard J. Pasch, Alexandre B. Pezza, Matthew Rosencrans, Carl J. Schreck, Blair C. Trewin, Ryan E. Truchelut, Bin Wang, Hui Wang, Kimberly M. Wood, John Mark Woolley, L. M. Andreassen, E. Baker, Thomas J. Ballinger, Logan T. Berner, Germar H. Bernhard, Uma S. Bhatt, Jarle W. Bjerke, L. N. Boisvert, Jason E. Box, B. Brettschneider, D. Burgess, Amy H. Butler, John Cappelen, B. Decharme, C. Derksen, Dmitry Divine, D. S. Drozdov, Matthew L. Druckenmiller, A. Elias Chereque, Howard E. Epstein, Sinead L. Farrell, Robert S. Fausto, Xavier Fettweis, Vitali E. Fioletov, Bruce C. Forbes, Gerald V. Frost, Sebastian Gerland, Scott J. Goetz, Jens Uwe Grooß, Christian Haas, Edward Hanna, Inger Hanssen-Bauer, M. M.P.D. Heijmans, Stefan Hendricks, Iolanda Ialongo, K. Isaksen, C. D. Jensen, Bjørn Johnsen, L. Kaleschke, A. L. Kholodov, Seong Joong Kim, J. Kohler, Niels J. Korsgaard, Zachary Labe, Kaisa Lakkala, Mark J. Lara, Simon H. Lee, Bryant Loomis, B. Luks, K. Luojus, Matthew J. Macander, R. Magnússon, G. V. Malkova, Kenneth D. Mankoff, Gloria L. Manney, Walter N. Meier, Twila A. Moon, Thomas Mote, Lawrence Mudryk, Rolf Muller, K. E. Nyland, James E. Overland, F. Pálsson, T. Park, C. L. Parker, Don Perovich, Alek Petty, Gareth K. Phoenix, J. E. Pinzon, Robert Ricker, Vladimir E. Romanovsky, S. P. Serbin, G. Sheffield, Nikolai I. Shiklomanov, Sharon L. Smith, K. M. Stafford, A. Steer, Tove Svendby, Marco Tedesco, Richard L. Thoman, L. Thomson, T. Thorsteinsson, X. Tian-Kunze, Mary Louise Timmermans, Hans Tømmervik, Mark Tschudi, C. J. Tucker, Donald A. Walker, John E. Walsh, Muyin Wang, Melinda Webster, A. Wehrlé, Øyvind Winton, G. Wolken, K. Wood, B. Wouters, D. Yang, Susheel Adusumilli, Rebecca Baiman, Alison F. Banwell, Sandra Barreira, Rebecca L. Beadling, Kyle R. Clem, Steve Colwell, Lawrence Coy, Rajashree T. Datta, Jos De Laat, Devon Dunmire, Ryan L. Fogt, Natalie M. Freeman, Helen Amanda Fricker, Alex S. Gardner, Bryan Johnson, Linda M. Keller, Natalya A. Kramarova, Matthew A. Lazzara, Jan L. Lieser, Michael MacFerrin, Graeme A. MacGilchrist, Michelle L. MacLennan, Robert A. Massom, Matthew R. Mazloff, Thomas L. Mote, Eric R. Nash, Paul A. Newman, Taylor Norton, Irina Petropavlovskikh, Michael Pitts, Marilyn N. Raphael, Phillip Reid, Michelle L. Santee, Ted A. Scambos, Jia Rui Shi, Sharon Stammerjohn, Susan E. Strahan, Andrew F. Thompson, Jonathan D. Wille, Earle Wilson, A. Abida, W. Agyakwah, Laura S. Aldeco, Eric J. Alfaro, Teddy Allen, Lincoln M. Alves, Jorge A. Amador, B. Andrade, P. Asgarzadeh, Grinia Avalos, Julian Baez, M. Yu Bardin, E. Bekele, Renato Bertalanic, Peter Bissolli, Oliver Bochníček, Brandon Bukunt, Blanca Calderón, Jayaka D. Campbell, Elise Chandler, Candice S. Charlton, Vincent Y.S. Cheng, Leonardo A. Clarke, Kris Correa, Catalina R. Cortés Salazar, Felipe Costa, Lenka Crhová, Ana Paula Cunha, Mesut Demircan, K. R. Dhurmea, Diana A. Domínguez, Dashkhuu Dulamsuren, M. ElKharrim, Jhan Carlo Espinoza, A. Fazl-Kezemi, Nava Fedaeff, Chris Fenimore, Steven Fuhrman, Catherine Ganter, Karin Gleason, Charles P. Guard, Samson Hagos, Mizuki Hanafusa, Richard R. Heim, John Kennedy, Sverker Hellström, Hugo G. Hidalgo, I. A. Ijampy, Gyo Soon Im, G. Jumaux, K. Kabidi, Kenneth Kerr, Yelena Khalatyan, Valentina Khan, Mai Van Khiem, Tobias Koch, Gerbrand Koren, Natalia N. Korshunova, A. C. Kruger, Mónika Lakatos, Jostein Mamen, Hoang Phuc Lam, Mark A. Lander, Waldo Lavado-Casimiro, Tsz Cheung Lee, Kinson H.Y. Leung, Xuefeng Liu, Rui Lu, José A. Marengo, Mohammadi Marjan, Ana E. Martínez, Charlotte McBride, Ademe Mekonnen, Mirek Mietus, Noelia Misevicius, Aurel Moise, Jorge Molina-Carpio, Natali Mora, Awatif E. Mostafa, O. Ndiaye, Juan J. Nieto, Kristin Olafsdottir, Reynaldo Pascual Ramírez, David Phillips, Amos Porat, Esteban Rodriguez Guisado, Madhavan Rajeevan, Andrea M. Ramos, Cristina Recalde Coronel, Alejandra J. Reyes Kohler, M. Robjhon, Josyane Ronchail, Roberto Salinas, Ahira Sánchez-Lugo, Hirotaka Sato, Hitoshi Sato, Amal Sayouri, Serhat Sensoy, Amsari Mudzakir Setiawan, F. Sima, Adam Smith, Matthieu Sorel, Sandra Spillane, Jacqueline M. Spence, O. P. Sreejith, A. K. Srivastava, Tannecia S. Stephenson, Kiyotoshi Takahashi, Michael A. Taylor, Wassila M. Thiaw, Skie Tobin, Lidia Trescilo, Adrian R. Trotman, Cedric J. Van Meerbeeck, A. Vazifeh, Shunya Wakamatsu, M. F. Zaheer, F. Zeng, Peiqun Zhang, Zhiwei Zhu

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

35 Scopus citations

Abstract

In 2021, both social and economic activities began to return towards the levels preceding the COVID-19 pandemic for some parts of the globe, with others still experiencing restrictions. Meanwhile, the climate has continued to respond to the ongoing increase in greenhouse gases and resulting warming. La Nia, a phenomenon which tends to depress global temperatures while changing rainfall patterns in many regions, prevailed for all but two months of the year. Despite this, 2021 was one of the six-warmest years on record as measured by global mean surface temperature with an anomaly of between +0.21 and +0.28C above the 19912020 climatology.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)S11-S142
JournalBulletin of the American Meteorological Society
Volume103
Issue number8
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 2022
Externally publishedYes

Funding

Data from the Programme for Monitoring of the Greenland Ice Sheet (PROMICE) were provided by the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) at http://www.promice.dk. Twila Moon was supported by the University of Colorado Boulder Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. Marco Tedesco was supported by National Science Foundation ANS #1713072, National Science Foundation PLR1-603331, NASA MAP #80NSSC17K0351, NASA #NN1X 7AH04G, and the Heising-Simons foundation. Thomas Mote was supported by National Science Foundation #1900324. Sentinel3-SICE data processing via PolarView.org is made possible by the European Space Agency (ESA) Network of Resources. Summit Station is owned and operated by the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs with permission from the Government of Greenland. Data from land-based weather stations in Greenland were provided by the Danish Meteorological Institute, and Summit Station data provided by NOAA GEOSummit. • Sandra Bigley provided invaluable editorial support for Chapter 3. Internal reviewers, external reviews, and report editors all provided comments that helped to improve the chapter. • Argo data used in the chapter were collected and made freely available by the International Argo Pro-gram and the national programs that contribute to it. (https://argo.ucsd.edu, https://www.ocean-ops . org). The Argo Program is part of the Global Ocean Observing System. Many authors of the chapter are supported by NOAA Research, the NOAA Global Ocean Monitoring and Observing Program, or the NOAA Ocean Acidification Program. • L. Cheng is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (42076202) and Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB42040402). • R. E. Killick is supported by the Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme funded by BEIS and Defra. PMEL contribution numbers 5214, 5215, 5216, 5217, and 5247. • We would like to acknowledge the national and/or hydrometeorological services/bureaus of Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Senegal (National Aviation and Meteorology Agency), Nigeria, South Africa, Madagascar, Seychelles, Comoros Mayotte (France), Reunion (France), and Mauritius. • We acknowledge support by the NOAA-CPC International Desk. Global datasets from NCEP/NCAR and GPCP are acknowledged. • Samson Hagos and Zhe Feng are supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science Biological and Environmental Research as part of the Atmospheric Systems Research (ASR) Program. Germar Bernhard and coauthors acknowledge the support of Biospherical Instruments, San Diego; the Research Council of Norway through its Centres of Excellence funding scheme, proej ct number 223268/F50; the Academy of Finland for supporting UV measurements through the FARPOCC, SAARA, and CHAMPS (grant no. 329225) proej cts; the European Space Agency for supporting the DACES proej ct; the Norwegian Environment Agency for funding UV measurements at Andøya and Ny-Ålesund; and the European Union for supporting e-shape. The authors also would like to thank Bodeker Scientific, funded by the New Zealand Deep South National Science Challenge, for providing the combined NIWA-BS total column ozone database; the Microwave Limb Sounder team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory for data-processing and analysis support; the European Centre for medium-range weather forecasts for providing reanalysis data; and Juha M. Karhu, Tomi Karppinen, and Markku Ahponen from the Finnish Meteorological Institute for operating the Brewer UV spectroradiometer at Sodankylä • N. M. Freeman was supported by the NASA Ocean Vector Winds Science Team (NASA award 80NS-SC19K0059). • R. L. Fogt acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation grant OPP1-744998. • M. A. Lazzara, L. M. Keller, and T. Norton were supported in part by the National Science Foundation Grant OPP1-924730. • K. R. Clem acknowledges support from the Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Fund grant MFP-VUW2010. • J. D. Wille acknowledges support from the Agence Nationale de la Recherche proej cts ANR2-0-CE01-0013 (ARCA). • R. T. Datta acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation, Award No. 1952199 • E. Wilson acknowledges support from Caltech’s Terrestrial Hazard Observations and Reporting (THOR) Center. • A. F. Thompson acknowledges support from NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Internal Research and Development program, Earth 2050. • G. A. MacGilchrist and M. Mazloff acknowledge support from NSF’s Southern Ocean Carbon and Climate Observations and Modeling (SOCCOM) Proej ct under NSF Award PLR1-425989, with additional support from NOAA and NASA. Logistical support for SOCCOM in the Antarctic was provided by the U.S. NSF through the U.S. Antarctic Program. • Work at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, was done under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Support was also provided by the NASA Modeling and Analysis Program. We are indebted to the many NOAA Corps Officers and GML technical personnel who spend the winters at South Pole Station to obtain the ongoing balloon and ground-based data sets. We also acknowledge the logistics support in Antarctica provided by the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs. • Section 6h: © 2022. All rights reserved. • P. Reid and J. Lieser were supported through the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, and R. Massom by the Australian Antarctic Division. The work of P. Reid and R. Massom also contributes to the Australian Government’s Australian Antarctic Partnership Program (AAPP). For R. Massom, this work was also sup-ported by the Australian Research Council Special Research Initiative the Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science (Proej ct Number SR200100008). • S. Stammerjohn was supported under NSF PLR 1440435; she also thanks the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research and the National Snow and Ice Data Center, both at the University of Colorado Boulder, for institutional and data support. • S. Barreira was supported by the Argentine Naval Hydrographic Service. • T. Scambos was supported under NASA grants NN1X 4AM54G and 80NSSC21K0750, the Arctic Sea Ice News and Analysis proej ct and NSF ANT 1738992, and the NSF-NERC International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration TARSAN project. The work of M. Flü lekrug was sponsored by the Royal Society (UK) grant NMG/R1/180252 and the Natural Environment Research Council (UK) under grants NE/L012669/1 and NE/H024921/1. E. Williams is supported for studies on global circuit response to climate change from the Physical and Dynamic Meteorology Program at the National Science Foundation on grant no. 6942679. C. Price was supported in his lightning research by the Israel Science Foundation (ISF) grant 2701/17 and the Ministry of Energy grant no. 2201-7-002. S. Goodman was supported by NASA Grant 80NSSC21K0923 and NASA Contract 80GSFC20C044. K. Virts is supported in part by the GOES-R Series Science, Demonstration, and Cal/Val Program at Marshall Space Flight Center. D. Buechler is supported by the NASA MSFC/UAH Cooperative Agreement NNM11AA01A. The authors wish to thank Peter Thorne at Maynooth University in Ireland and at the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) for suggesting and initiating this work and for recommending that lightning be made an essential climate variable. The data used to generate Fig. SB2.1 are available from the NASA Global Hydrometeorology Resource Center DAAC, Huntsville, Alabama. The data used to generate Fig. SB.2.2 are provided by WWLLN to GHRC as part of GLM cal/val activities.

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