Roy W. Spencer

2023 was twice as warm as would have been expected from increasing CO2, so at least half of that "record warm" year's warmth was due to natural causes.

An unusually warm year or two cannot be blamed on climate change « Roy Spencer, PhD
drroyspencer.com

Tim suggests:

Perhaps this is a result of the eruption of hunga Tonga? Lots of water vapor released into the atmosphere.

Judith Curry thinks so:

Hunga Tonga volcano: impact on record warming
judithcurry.com

Dr. Spencer replies:

I doubt it. Calculations of the changes in stratospheric radiation and their effect on the troposphere show only a tiny effect. CERES satellites radiative budget measurements show fewer clouds, so more incoming sunlight. Don't know why.

Bjørn K Vottestad adds: I don't think the world has warmed since 1998, outside the margin of error and the UHI environment.... and then we had the Tonga event.

The Tonga eruption will cause climate chaos for years to come, as the added water in the form of water vapour and ice crystals will warm the tropical regions and cool the polar regions of the world.
As that extra water moves from the top of the troposphere down to the surface of the tempered parts of the Earth, it will warm that part of the Earth and even lift more water into the atmosphere, so it's impossible to predict how long the Tonga effect will last.

The perturbation of stratospheric water vapour burden by 13% is tremendous and has no frame of comparison in the entire observation record dating back to 1985. As there are no efficient sinks of water vapour in the stratosphere, this perturbation is expected to last over several years. Indeed, in 9 months since the eruption, the water vapour mass anomaly has gradually decreased only by 2.5% (4.3 ± 0.1% annual rate)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-022-00652-x.pdf

New research suggests 150-million metric tons or almost 40 Trillion gallons of water vapor was injected into the upper-atmosphere. A lot of it is still up there floating around.

Siege in the Southern Stratosphere: Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai Water Vapor Excluded From the 2022 Antarctic Polar Vortex
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2023GL103855

Tonga's eruption injected so much water into Earth’s atmosphere that it could weaken the ozone layer
This excess water, the researchers warned, could have a radiating effect that could warm the atmosphere much as greenhouse gases do. Because the water is likely to stick around longer than other volcanic gases, like sulfur dioxide — which normally fall out of the atmosphere within two to three years — the water's warming effect will likely outlast any cooling effects the gases create.

This means the Tonga explosion will likely be the first eruption on record to cause a warming effect, rather than a cooling effect, on the planet, researchers wrote.
https://www.livescience.com/tonga-eruption-water-vapor
⁷
The global warming caused by Hunga-Tonga is significant. The eruption of Hunga-Tonga increased the water vapor mass in the stratosphere by 13%, and it will remain there for many years to come.
https://climaterealism.com/2023/07/the-tonga-underwater-volcano-eruption-may-have-had-a-larger-warming-effect-than-originally-reported/?fbclid=IwAR1enGmqgC46GRO56uXXEMZiD7XOKTsgVEiiN0XKHIDKo1HwxjML4LzRR6s

This eruption could impact climate not through surface cooling due to sulfate aerosols, but rather through surface warming due to the radiative forcing from the excess stratospheric H2O.
In addition to particulate matter, volcanic eruptions can loft large quantities of gases into the stratosphere. Although around 80% of this gas volume can be magmatic H2O (Coffey, 1996; Pinto et al., 1989), up to 90% of the volcanically emitted humidity is usually removed by condensation at the cold point tropopause (Glaze et al., 1997). Considerable amounts of CO2 and SO2 are also often found in volcanic plumes, along with HCl and other trace gases (e.g., Carn et al., 2016). SO2 reacts with H2O and OH to form submicron sulfate aerosols that reflect solar radiation, lowering surface temperature. For example, the radiative influence of the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption "put an end to several years of globally warm surface temperature” (McCormick et al., 1995), illustrating the capacity of volcanic eruptions to substantially alter global climate.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022GL099381

The 2022 Hunga-Tonga megatsunami: Near-field simulation of a once-in-a-century event
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adf5493

》Within days of the eruption, a team of scientists from NOAA converged on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean with an array of specialized instruments — including one designed by Vömel — to take readings of the eruption’s impact on stratospheric chemistry in the Southern Hemisphere. Among their findings: stratospheric water vapor levels several thousand miles from the site of the eruptionp were as high as 358 parts per million. That was a staggering increase over the typical level of five parts per million.

Intrigued, Vömel began looking at data from radiosondes launched by nations in the region. One radiosonde that had been launched from Fiji into the volcanic plume less than a day after the eruption found water vapor levels of more than 1,300 parts per million, and radiosondes over eastern Australia showed levels of 2,900 parts per million.

"This was just absolutely mind-blowing,” Vömel said.

https://news.ucar.edu/132867/volcanic-eruption-dramatically-increased-water-vapor-stratosphere

We conclude from these similarities that the heating anomalies of sulfur, ash and changes in the ozone concentrations are less important for the transport of the H2O cloud than the heating anomalies of the water vapor.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2023GL106482
F
https://communities.springernature.com/posts/hunga-tonga-eruption-the-most-remarkable-climatic-event-in-the-last-three-decades

Tonga, water and the cooling of the stratosphere
https://www.severe-weather.eu/global-weather/stratosphere-polar-vortex-cooling-event-update-cold-anomaly-winter-season-influence-fa/

https://www.realclearscience.com/articles/2024/06/01/tongas_volcanic_eruption_could_cause_unusual_weather_for_the_rest_of_the_decade_1035309.html?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3208ENMl0gvDssnFN9yrcpt-DQEn4H31vTODf6fcr7sYgpaAB-k0is6QM_aem_AbB0iRbgvrv_IXcJI0EjkUq6spCW_5UPhY6WsZjZ4dYCWdF5TU0zK9Lt0ME6iROlOrCRrav3eQ0Yed30F7zDa1nz

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