ANIMAL EXPERIMENTATION

The early bird (or scientist) gets the worm

UC Riverside research on nematodes secures $1.3M NSF funding

Grant and Award Announcement

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - RIVERSIDE

 

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PHOTO SHOWS MORRIS MADURO (STANDING) AND GINA BROITMAN-MADURO.

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CREDIT: STAN LIM, UC RIVERSIDE.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- Size does not matter. Certainly not when it comes to tiny worms securing the attention of biologists. One such biologist, Morris F. Maduro at the University of California, Riverside, has just been awarded a grant of nearly $1.3 million from the National Science Foundation, or NSF, to study a worm (or nematode) about a millimeter in length.

The research project will focus on the gut of Pristionchus pacificus. Like most nematodes, P. pacificus develops quickly, its growth from embryo to adult taking just four days. It is a complete animal, with a nervous system, skin, intestine, and muscles. Nematodes of the genus Pristionchus are a distant relative of the well-studied species Caenorhabditis elegans, used by biologists as a model organism to study animal development and behavior.

Funded for four years, the research project will focus on changes in the gene network that specify the early intestinal precursor cells in nematodes like P. pacificus. Gene networks describe how genes turn each other on and off. Precursor cells are stem cells that can differentiate — or specialize — into only one cell type.

“During embryonic development, gene networks cause cells to develop along pathways of differentiation, resulting in cells becoming specialized in their function,” said Maduro, a professor of molecular, cell and systems biology who has studied nematodes for more than two decades. “Changes in such networks occur over evolutionary time and in human disease. For more than 25 years, gut specification was studied in only a single species, C. elegans, and its close relatives. The NSF grant will allow us to extend our work into the genus Pristionchus.”

P. pacificus is usually found in association with a species of scarab beetle, while C. elegans is free-living and usually found on rotting fruit. P. pacificus has some adaptations, such as a mouth with a little tooth for eating the corpses of dead beetles. As a result, P. pacificus can attack other nematodes and is more predatory than C. elegans. C. elegans tends to eat mostly bacteria and fungi. 

“Pristionchus embryos look a like those of C. elegans,” Maduro said. “But even when the phenotype, the outward form of the animal, doesn’t change, the genes behind the scenes can still change. This phenomenon is called developmental system drift, paralleling the term genetic drift. Entire sets of genes can change while their overall function does not. In other words, the endpoint, whether it’s C. elegans or P. pacificus or another nematode species, still looks like a nematode. This means Pristionchus makes its gut in a different way than C. elegans. This idea that genes change when the phenotype looks the same among species is probably quite widespread.”

Photo shows Pristionchus worms. An adult is about 1 millimeter long. 

CREDIT

Maduro lab, UC Riverside.

Eric S. Haag, a professor of biology at the University of Maryland who will not be participating in the research project, said he is excited to learn more about Maduro’s work. 

“Biologists have long sought to understand how new features of animal bodies get encoded by new genomic instructions. But we now know that even the genes that construct ancient traits still undergo evolutionary changes,” Haag said. “Dr. Maduro’s work uses a very manipulable type of nematode to explore this paradoxical fact. Within a group of worms with very similar digestive systems, some species have re-invented the genetic circuits that control their development. It’s so surprising, and I can’t wait to learn about what they find.” 

Maduro explained that gene network changes can occur due to mutations or infection and can lead to diseases such as cancer. 

“Nematodes are a powerful model system for us to study how gene networks can change, because we can get answers inexpensively and on a short time scale,” he said. “By comparing Pristionchus and C. elegans, we hope to learn fundamental principles about how gene networks can become more complex.”

The project will use a combination of bioinformatic and genetics methods to understand how the simple embryonic gene network in an ancestral Pristionchus species underwent expansion over evolutionary time to form a more complex network. 

“Two technologies have allowed researchers to address the explosion of this and other evolutionary questions we see today,” Maduro said. “They are (a) rapid genome sequencing at low cost and (b) the ability to use CRISPR to knock out genes in the genome at low cost and high efficiency.”

Maduro added that nematode species can be found in almost every ecological niche on Earth. 

“There are maybe a million different species,” he said. “We can only study a small number of them. Pristionchus garnered scientific interest only about 25 years ago and research took off in earnest in the past decade when CRISPR became available to simplify gene editing. P. pacificus has three genes that specify the gut, but other related species have fewer genes. We have an opportunity to study the stepwise evolution of how this network got bigger and more complicated.” 

Preliminary work in Maduro’s lab identified two of these three expanded genes in Pristionchus. When the gene pair was deleted, the gut disappeared in about half of the worms. 

“We now need to delete that third gene to make sure we know that’s the only other gene that leads to gut specification,” Maduro said. “This grant will help us do that.”

The project will provide teaching and training opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students, including through a freshman laboratory course in nematode genetics, bioinformatics, microscopy, and molecular biology. Four undergraduate students will receive summer support for each year of the grant to work on projects related to Pristionchus. The grant will support up to two graduate students. Maduro will be assisted in the research by his wife, Gina Broitman-Maduro, an associate specialist in his lab. The start date of the grant is January 15, 2024.

The University of California, Riverside is a doctoral research university, a living laboratory for groundbreaking exploration of issues critical to Inland Southern California, the state and communities around the world. Reflecting California's diverse culture, UCR's enrollment is more than 26,000 students. The campus opened a medical school in 2013 and has reached the heart of the Coachella Valley by way of the UCR Palm Desert Center. The campus has an annual impact of more than $2.7 billion on the U.S. economy. To learn more, visit www.ucr.edu.

 

Earth-sized planet discovered in ‘our solar backyard’

'It’s a useful planet because it may be like an early Earth'

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON

 

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YOUNG, HOT, EARTH-SIZED PLANET HD 63433D SITS CLOSE TO ITS STAR IN THE CONSTELLATION URSA MAJOR, WHILE TWO NEIGHBORING, MINI-NEPTUNE-SIZED PLANETS — IDENTIFIED IN 2020 — ORBIT FARTHER OUT.

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CREDIT: ALYSSA JANKOWSKI

MADISON — A team of astronomers have discovered a planet closer and younger than any other Earth-sized world yet identified. It’s a remarkably hot world whose proximity to our own planet and to a star like our sun mark it as a unique opportunity to study how planets evolve.

The new planet was described in a new study published this week by The Astronomical Journal. Melinda Soares-Furtado, a NASA Hubble Fellow at the University of Wisconsin–Madison who will begin work as an astronomy professor at the university in the fall, and recent UW–Madison graduate Benjamin Capistrant, now a graduate student at the University of Florida, co-led the study with co-authors from around the world.

“It’s a useful planet because it may be like an early Earth,” says Soares-Furtado.

Here is what scientists know about the planet:

• The planet is known as HD 63433d and it’s the third planet found in orbit around a star called HD 63433.
• HD 63433d is so close to its star, it completes a trip all the way around every 4.2 days.
• “Even though it's really close-orbiting, we can use follow-up data to search for evidence of outgassing and atmospheric loss that could be important constraints on how terrestrial worlds evolve,” Soares-Furtado says. “But that’s where the similarities end — and end dramatically.”
• Based on its orbit, the astronomers are relatively certain HD 63433d is tidally locked, which means one side is perpetually facing its star.
• That side can reach a brutal 2,300 degrees Fahrenheit and may flow with lava, while the opposite side is forever dark.

What you should know about the planet’s star:

• HD 63433 is roughly the same size and star type as our sun, but (at about 400 million years old) it’s not even one-tenth our sun’s age.
• The star is about 73 light years away from our own sun and part of the group of stars moving together that make up the constellation Ursa Major, which includes the Big Dipper.
• “On a dark night in Madison,” Soares-Furtado says, “you could see [HD 63433] through a good pair of binoculars.”

How the scientists found the planet:

• The study’s authors are collaborating on a planet-hunting project called THYME. In 2020, they used data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite to identify two mini-Neptune-sized planets orbiting HD 63433.

• Since then, TESS took four more looks at the star, compiling enough data for the researchers to detect HD 63433d crossing between the star and the satellite.

What comes next:

• The researchers, including UW–Madison study co-authors graduate student Andrew C. Nine, undergraduate Alyssa Jankowski and Juliette Becker, a UW–Madison astronomy professor, think there is plenty to learn from HD 63433d.
• The planet is uniquely situated for further study. Its peppy young star is visible from both the Northern and Southern hemispheres, increasing the number of instruments, like the South African Large Telescope or WIYN Observatory in Arizona (both of which UW–Madison helped design and build) that can be trained on the system.
• And the star is orders of magnitude closer than many Soares-Furtado has studied, possibly affording opportunities to develop new methods to study gasses escaping from the planet’s interior or measure its magnetic field.

“This is our solar backyard, and that's kind of exciting,” Soares-Furtado says. “What sort of information can a star this close, with such a crowded system around it, give away? How will it help us as we move on to look for planets among the maybe 100 other, similar stars in this young group it’s part of?”

This research was supported in part by grants from NASA (HST-HF2-51493.001-A, 21-ASTRO21-0068 and XRP 80NSSC21K0393) and the National Science Foundation (AST-2143763, PHY-2210452 and 1745302).

HD 63433 Fact Sheet.PNG 

Young, hot, Earth-sized planet HD 63433d sits close to its star in the constellation Ursa Major, while two neighboring, mini-Neptune-sized planets — identified in 2020 — orbit farther out.

CREDIT

Alyssa Jankowski

JOURNAL

The Astronomical Journal

DOI

10.3847/1538-3881/ad1039 

ARTICLE TITLE

TESS Hunt for Young and Maturing Exoplanets (THYME). XI. An Earth-sized Planet Orbiting a Nearby, Solar-like Host in the 400 Myr Ursa Major Moving Group

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

10-Jan-2024

 

Drinkable, carbon monoxide-infused foam enhances effectiveness of experimental cancer therapy

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF IOWA HEALTH CARE

 

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GAS-ENTRAPPING FOAM INFUSED WITH CARBON MONOXIDE ENHANCES ANTI-CANCER ACTIVITY OF AUTOPHAGY INHIBITORS, WHICH MAY HELP IMPROVE THERAPIES FOR MANY DIFFERENT CANCERS.

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CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF IOWA HEALTH CARE

Did smokers do better than non-smokers in a clinical trial for an experimental cancer treatment? That was the intriguing question that led University of Iowa researchers and their colleagues to develop a drinkable, carbon monoxide-infused foam that boosted the effectiveness of the therapy, known as autophagy inhibition, in mice and human cells. The findings were recently published in the journal Advanced Science. 

Looking for ways to exploit biological differences between cancer cells and healthy cells is a standard approach for devising new cancer treatments. But it is a painstaking process that requires a deep understanding of complex cancer biology and often a dose of unexpected insight. 

The potential of autophagy inhibitors 

Researchers have known for several decades that autophagy, which is the cell’s natural recycling system, is increased in cancer cells relative to healthy cells, suggesting that inhibiting autophagy might be a way to target cancer cells. However, results from almost 20 clinical trials testing autophagy inhibitors have been inconclusive. 

"Within those clinical trials they found mixed results; there was some benefit, but for many patients there was no benefit, which really pushed researchers back to the drawing board,” says James Byrne, MD, PhD, UI assistant professor of radiation oncology and biomedical engineering and senior author on the new study.  

Searching for insight into why autophagy inhibition only seems to work some of the time, the researchers made the surprising discovery that smokers in two of the previous trials of autophagy inhibitors seemed to do better than non-smokers.  

“When we looked at how the smokers did in those trials, we saw an increase in overall response in smokers that received the autophagy inhibitors, compared to (non-smoker) patients, and we also saw a pretty robust decrease in the target lesion size,” Byrne says. 

This was an exciting finding for Byrne and his team because smoking is also associated with increased levels of carbon monoxide, a gas molecule that can increase autophagy in cells in a way that researchers think might enhance the anti-cancer effect of autophagy inhibitors. 

“We know also that smokers have higher carbon monoxide levels and while we definitely don’t recommend smoking, this suggested that elevated carbon monoxide might improve the effectiveness of autophagy inhibitors. We want to be able to harness that benefit and take it into a therapeutic platform,” says Byrne, who also is a member of University of Iowa Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center. 

Carbon monoxide boosts anti-cancer activity of autophagy inhibition 

The team already had just such a “platform” to test their ideas. Byrne specializes in crafting gas-entrapping materials (GEMs)—foams, gels, and solids made from safe, edible substances that can be infused with different gas molecules. For this study, the researchers created a drinkable foam infused with carbon monoxide.  

When mice with pancreatic and prostate cancers were fed the carbon monoxide foam and simultaneously treated with an autophagy inhibitor, tumor growth and progression was significantly reduced in the animals. The team also showed that combining carbon monoxide with autophagy inhibitors had a significant anti-cancer effect in human prostate, lung, and pancreatic cancer cells in petri dishes. 

Ultimately, Byrne hopes to test this approach in human clinical trials. 

“The results from this study support the idea that safe, therapeutic levels of CO, which we can deliver using GEMs, can increase the anti-cancer activity of autophagy inhibitors, opening a promising new approach that might improve therapies for many different cancers,” he says. 

In addition to Byrne, the research team included UI researchers Jianling Bi, Emily Witt, Megan McGovern, Arielle Cafi, Lauren Rosenstock, Lucas Absler, Srija Machkanti, Kellie Bodeker, Scott Shaw, Vitor Lira, and Michael Henry. 

The research team also included scientists from MIT, Harvard Medical School, University of Pennsylvania, Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, University of North Carolina Wilmington, and Oregon Health and Science University. 

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JOURNAL

Advanced Science

DOI

10.1002/advs.202308346 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Oral Carbon Monoxide Enhances Autophagy Modulation in Prostate, Pancreatic, and Lung Cancers

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

12-Dec-2023

COI STATEMENT

HB, DG, LEO, GT, and JDB are co-inventors on a patent application (WO2022055991A1) submitted by Brigham and Women's Hospital, MIT, and BIDMC that covers therapeutic carbon monoxide formulations. Complete details of all relationships for profit and non for profit for GT can be found at www.dropbox.com/sh/szi7vnr4a2ajb56/AABs5N5i0qAfT1IqIJAE-T5a?dl=0. The authors declare that they have no other competing interests.

News media trigger conflict for romantic couples with differing political views

 NEWS RELEASE 12-JAN-2024

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN, NEWS BUREAU

 

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COUPLES WITH DIFFERING POLITICAL VIEWS AND IDENTITIES FACE UNIQUE CHALLENGES IN THEIR CONSUMPTION OF NEWS, WHICH CAN CREATE SIGNIFICANT STRESS ON THEIR RELATIONSHIP, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS URBANA-CHAMPAIGN COMMUNICATION PROFESSOR EMILY VAN DUYN FOUND IN A RECENT STUDY.

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CREDIT: L. BRIAN STAUFFER

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — By one estimate, as many as 30% of people in the U.S. are in romantic relationships with partners who do not share their political views. In today’s hyperpartisan climate, where Democrats and Republicans have difficulty talking to each other and their views are polarized about media outlets’ credibility, how do couples with differing political perspectives decide which media to follow? And how do these decisions affect their discussions on political issues and their relationship in general?

To explore these questions, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign communication professor Emily Van Duyn conducted in-depth interviews with 67 people whose partners’ political views differed from their own. For these couples, seemingly mundane decisions about media consumption became “especially difficult,” Van Duyn said.

“Their cross-cutting political views presented many challenges for these couples,” Van Duyn said. “Deciding which media to consume and whether to do so together or separately was difficult because it presented them with a choice about recognizing their political differences and finding a way to navigate them.

“They saw the news as inherently political, and their selection of a news outlet or the act of sharing an article or video meant they were intentionally pulling their partner into a recognition of their political differences.”

News coverage activated differences between the partners that otherwise would not have emerged, sparking conflict as well as discussion. Conflict emerged in various ways, including disagreement over news sources and content, but also when one person failed to respond as intensely as their partner when the latter shared news that they found disturbing or alarming, Van Duyn said.

Partners’ differing political beliefs and/or identities created a need to influence or negotiate their news consumption, a process that Van Duyn calls “negotiated exposure” and that played out across public-facing media such as television and those that are more private in nature like social media.

This process and the interpersonal conflict that resulted from it “often worked in tandem to reinforce one another and impact the relationship,” Van Duyn said. “Conflict resulting from news consumption often caused individuals to seek greater control of their news exposure, a reinforcing process that highlights the muddled order in how individuals simultaneously navigate news and relationships in contemporary democracy.”

 Van Duyn chose to interview only one partner from each couple so that participants would feel comfortable speaking freely without the concern of impacting their relationship or feeling constrained by their partners’ views. To protect the privacy of those interviewed, who were recruited through social media advertisements, pseudonyms were used in the study.

Of the participants, 39 were female, 27 were male and one identified as non-binary. Most were in opposite-sex relationships and had been in their current relationship more than two years. The majority (42) of the study participants where white, 11 were Black, three were Hispanic and 11 were Asian.

A 46-year-old Virginia woman identified as “Wendy” in the study was a Donald Trump-supporting Republican whose boyfriend of two years was a Democrat who voted for Hillary Clinton. Wendy said that she and her partner compromised on which news programs they viewed on television and when, with Wendy having control over programming during the morning hours and her boyfriend’s preferences taking precedence during the afternoon.

 Since the couple fervently disagreed about then-President Trump, co-viewing TV news together created friction, especially when Wendy felt there was too much negative coverage of Trump and wanted to avoid it. Moreover, negative news stories about Trump made Wendy susceptible not only to her boyfriend’s criticism of her favored candidate – but also of herself, personally.

Some couples sought a common media outlet they could agree on to co-view together, while others intentionally chose to consume news independently, whether in separate rooms or by scrolling their social media feeds on separate devices while in each other’s company. Other individuals sought ways of consuming news with their partner that superseded their differences and utilized other news media privately, according to the study.

Nancy, a 49-year-old Michigan woman who had switched from voting Republican to voting Democratic in 2016 and 2020, said her husband was a Trump supporter that held political beliefs she described as “diametrically opposed” to her own. News was a significant source of conflict between them as was Nancy’s ideological shift, which her husband attributed to her viewing CNN.

Nancy, who worked from home, responded by watching CNN secretly during the day when her spouse was away and kept her political activity – working as a text banker for the Democratic party during the 2020 election – secret as well.

“The point in their relationship when couples’ political differences emerged affected how partners negotiated news with one another,” Van Duyn said. “While some were aware of their ideological differences at the outset of the relationship, other individuals found their shared tradition of amicably co-viewing the news together disrupted when their partners’ views or party affiliation changed. Negotiations around news selection in cross-cutting relationships involved a negotiation of political identity as much as of news exposure.”

When the news began to take a negative toll on some participants and their relationship, these couples decided to avoid the news altogether and quit sharing articles or videos with each other because doing so triggered tensions that affected their emotional intimacy.

Van Duyn said that some of those who chose news avoidance cited heightened conflict within their relationship or mental health concerns such as anxiety.

The study, published in the journal Political Communication, was funded by the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University.

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JOURNAL

Political Communication

DOI

10.1080/10584609.2023.2270445 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

“Negotiating news: How cross-cutting romantic partners select, consume and discuss news together

2023: the warmest year on record globally

NEWS RELEASE 12-JAN-2024

UNIVERSITY OF EAST ANGLIA

Globally 2023 was the warmest year in a series stretching back to 1850, according to figures released today by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia. 

2023 is the tenth year in succession that has equalled or exceeded 1.0 °C above the pre-industrial period (1850-1900).  

The global average temperature for 2023 was 1.46 °C above the pre-industrial baseline; 0.17 °C warmer than the value for 2016, the previous warmest year on record in the HadCRUT5 global temperature dataset which runs from 1850. 

Dr Colin Morice is a Climate Monitoring and Research Scientist with the Met Office. He said: 

“2023 is now confirmed as the warmest year on average over the globe in 174-years of observation. 2023 also set a series of monthly records, monthly global average temperatures having remained at record levels since June. Ocean surface temperatures have remained at record levels since April. 

“Year-to-year variations sit on a background of around 1.25 °C warming in global average temperatures above pre-industrial levels. This warming is attributable to human-induced climate change through greenhouse gas emissions.” 

On top of the long-term warming, a transition into El Niño conditions contributed to further elevated temperatures for the latter part of the year. El Niño is part of a pattern of climate variability in the tropical Pacific that imparts warmth to the global atmosphere, temporarily adding up to 0.2 °C to the temperature of an individual year. This stands in contrast to the reverse pattern of climate variability, La Niña, which suppressed global average temperatures in 2021 and 2022. 

Outlook for 2024  

Professor Adam Scaife is a Principal Fellow and Head of Monthly to Decadal Prediction at the Met Office. He said: “It is striking that the temperature record for 2023 has broken the previous record set in 2016 by so much because the main effect of the current El Niño will come in 2024. Consistent with this, the Met Office’s 2024 temperature forecast shows this year has strong potential to be another record-breaking year.” 

The Met Office global temperature for 2024 is forecast to be between 1.34 °C and 1.58 °C (with a central estimate of 1.46 °C) above the average for the pre-industrial period (1850-1900): the 11th year in succession that temperatures will have reached at least 1.0 °C above pre-industrial levels. 

HadCRUT5 

The HadCRUT5 dataset is compiled by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia (UEA), with support from the National Centre for Atmospheric Science. It shows that when compared with the pre-industrial reference period, 2023 was 1.46 ± 0.1 °C above the 1850-1900 average. This aligns extremely well with figures published today by other international centres. 

Professor Tim Osborn, of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, said: “Twenty-five years ago, 1998 was a record-breaking year for global average temperature. But last year’s global temperature was 0.5 °C warmer than 1998, providing further evidence that our planet is warming on average by 0.2 °C per decade.  

“At the current rate of human-induced warming, 2023’s record-breaking values will in time be considered to be cool in comparison with what projections of our future climate suggest.” 

Other data sets 

The World Meteorological Organization uses six international data sets to provide an authoritative assessment of global temperature change. They report 2023 was around 1.45 ± 0.12°C warmer than the 1850-1900 baseline based on an average of the six data sets.   

The long-term warming is clear. Since the 1980s, each decade has been warmer than the previous one. 

Importance of global mean temperature  

Global average temperature is the key measure of climate change, providing a headline metric that is expanded upon by the changing patterns of rainfall, drought, ice, temperature and extreme weather that are associated with a warming climate. You can see the impact on other key climate indicators on the Met Office global climate dashboard. 

It is complex and challenging to track the average temperature of an entire planet, using around a billion temperature observations from the last 174 years. 

The UK’s contribution to measuring this key indicator of climate change is led by scientists at the Met Office, UEA and NCAS. This ongoing work is crucial as the world moves still closer to the limits set out in the Paris Agreement 

Prof Philip Jones, Professorial Fellow at UEA’s Climatic Research Unit, said: “I've been working with the global temperature series since the early 1980s. There has never been a year like 2023 where the warmest-ever June, warmest-ever July through to the warmest-ever December was recorded for seven months in a row, from June to December, 2023.” 

Defining global temperature change relevant to the Paris Agreement 

While the global average temperature in a particular year is well-known, this will not be suitable as an indicator of whether the “Paris 1.5” has been breached or not, because the Paris Agreement refers to long-term warming, not individual years. But no alternative has yet been formally agreed.  

In a recent paper published in Nature, Met Office scientist Prof Richard Betts and coauthors proposed an indicator combining the last ten years of global temperature observations with an estimate of the projection or forecast for the next ten years. If adopted by the international community this could mean a universally agreed measure of global warming that could trigger immediate action to avoid further rises. 

Using this suggested approach, the researchers found that the figure for the current global warming level, relevant to the Paris Agreement, is around 1.26 °C, with an uncertainty range of 1.13 °C to 1.43 °C.    

This graphic shows the annual global temperature anomaly for 2023 compared to a 1961-1990 averaging period. The global average temperature for 2023 was 1.46 °C above the pre-industrial baseline according to the HadCRUT5 data set. This map uses HadCRUT5 data, compiled by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia, with support from the National Centre for Atmospheric Science.  

[An animated monthly version of this graphic is available here] 

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METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

NASA analysis confirms 2023 as warmest year on record

Reports and Proceedings

NASA/GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER

Earth’s average surface temperature in 2023 was the warmest on record, according to an analysis by NASA. Global temperatures last year were around 2.1 degrees Fahrenheit (1.2 degrees Celsius) above the average for NASA’s baseline period (1951-1980), scientists from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York reported.

“NASA and NOAA’s global temperature report confirms what billions of people around the world experienced last year; we are facing a climate crisis,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “From extreme heat, to wildfires, to rising sea levels, we can see our Earth is changing. There’s still more work to be done, but President Biden and communities across America are taking more action than ever to reduce climate risks and help communities become more resilient – and NASA will continue to use our vantage point of space to bring critical climate data back down to Earth that is understandable and accessible for all people. NASA and the Biden-Harris Administration are working to protect our home planet and its people, for this generation – and the next.”

In 2023, hundreds of millions of people around the world experienced extreme heat, and each month from June through December set a global record for the respective month. July was the hottest month ever recorded. Overall, Earth was about 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit (or about 1.4 degrees Celsius) warmer in 2023 than the late 19th-century average, when modern record-keeping began.

“The exceptional warming that we’re experiencing is not something we’ve seen before in human history,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of GISS. “It’s driven primarily by our fossil fuel emissions, and we’re seeing the impacts in heat waves, intense rainfall, and coastal flooding.”

Though scientists have conclusive evidence that the planet’s long-term warming trend is driven by human activity, they still examine other phenomena that can affect yearly or multi-year changes in climate such as El Niño, aerosols and pollution, and volcanic eruptions.

Typically, the largest source of year-to-year variability is the El Niño – Southern Oscillation ocean climate pattern in the Pacific Ocean. The pattern has two phases – El Niño and La Niña – when sea surface temperatures along the equator switch between warmer, average, and cooler temperatures. From 2020-2022, the Pacific Ocean saw three consecutive La Niña events, which tend to cool global temperatures. In May 2023, the ocean transitioned from La Niña to El Niño, which often coincides with the hottest years on record.

However, the record temperatures in the second half of 2023 occurred before the peak of the current El Niño event. Scientists expect to see the biggest impacts of El Niño in February, March, and April.

Scientists have also investigated possible impacts from the January 2022 eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai undersea volcano, which blasted water vapor and fine particles, or aerosols, into the stratosphere. A recent study found that the volcanic aerosols – by reflecting sunlight away from Earth’s surface – led to an overall slight cooling of less than 0.2 degrees Fahrenheit (or about 0.1 degrees Celsius) in the Southern Hemisphere following the eruption.

“Even with occasional cooling factors like volcanoes or aerosols, we will continue to break records as long as greenhouse gas emissions keep going up,” Schmidt said. “And, unfortunately, we just set a new record for greenhouse gas emissions again this past year.”

“The record-setting year of 2023 underscores the significance of urgent and continued actions to address climate change,” said NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy. “Recent legislation has delivered the U.S. government’s largest-ever climate investment, including billions to strengthen America’s resilience to the increasing impacts of the climate crisis. As an agency focused on studying our changing climate, NASA’s fleet of Earth observing satellites will continue to provide critical data of our home planet at scale to help all people make informed decisions.”

Open Science in Action

NASA assembles its temperature record using surface air temperature data collected from tens of thousands of meteorological stations, as well as sea surface temperature data acquired by ship- and buoy-based instruments. This data is analyzed using methods that account for the varied spacing of temperature stations around the globe and for urban heating effects that could skew the calculations.

Independent analyses by NOAA and the Hadley Centre (part of the United Kingdom Met Office) concluded the global surface temperatures for 2023 were the highest since modern record-keeping began. These scientists use much of the same temperature data in their analyses but use different methodologies. Although rankings can differ slightly between the records, they are in broad agreement and show the same ongoing long-term warming in recent decades.

Building on a half century of research, observations, and models, the Biden-Harris Administration including NASA and several federal partners recently launched the U.S. Greenhouse Gas Center to make critical climate data readily available to decisionmakers and citizens. The center supports collaboration across U.S. government agencies and the non-profit and private sectors to make air-, ground-, and space-borne data and resources available online.

NASA’s full dataset of global surface temperatures through 2023, as well as details with code of how NASA scientists conducted the analysis, are publicly available from GISS. GISS is a NASA laboratory managed by the Earth Sciences Division of the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The laboratory is affiliated with Columbia University’s Earth Institute and School of Engineering and Applied Science in New York.