(Axel Timmermann)

Allow me to take you on a little walk down memory lane. 2023 was, from a climate scientist’s perspective, an extremely unusual and surprising year: it will be remembered by the world as the hottest one since instrumental recordings began in the 1850s (Figure 1); it saw the development of a major El Niño that wreaked havoc across our planet and contributed to an unprecedented yearly temperature increase; it ended with a historical UN COP-28 meeting in Dubai where government representatives, NGOs and thousands of people from various industries and interest groups met to finally announce “the beginning of the end” of the fossil fuel era [UN Climate Change Press Release, 13 December 2023]. Here in South Korea, 2023 will be remembered as a year with unusually high autumn temperatures, even triggering a cherry blossom in Yeosu in November (6 months ahead of schedule) and, unfortunately, a year when Busan lost the climate-solution-oriented world EXPO bid to the petrosta...