2024-01-09 14:00:05
The chain of months with record temperatures throughout 2023 already suggested that globally it was going to be the hottest year since records began. A forecast that the European climate change service Copernicus confirmed this Tuesday after analyzing all the available data. Not only is 2023 officially the hottest year since measurements began to be taken in 1850, but the increase in average global temperature throughout this period has remained close to reaching 1.5 degrees compared to what it was at the time. beginning of the industrial era.
According to the 2023 climate report presented this Tuesday, “unprecedented global temperatures starting in June caused 2023 to become the warmest year on record, surpassing 2016″, the warmest year so far. Thus, the global average temperature was 14.98 C, which is 0.17 C higher than the previous highest annual value, measured in 2016.
If we make a longer-term comparison, it was 0.6 C warmer than the average recorded between 1991 and 2020, and 1.48 C warmer than the average recorded during the pre-industrial period (between 1850 and 1900).
“2023 was an exceptional year in which climate records fell like dominoes. “Not only is it the warmest year on record, it is also the first year in which all its days were one degree above the global average temperature of the pre-industrial period,” said Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service. The scientist also highlights that “Temperatures during 2023 will likely exceed those of any period in at least the last 100,000 years.”
The first signs of how unusual 2023 was going to be appeared in early June, when temperature anomalies relative to the pre-industrial level of 1850-1900 reached 1.5C for several days in a row. Although it was not the first time that daily anomalies reached this level, it had never happened before at this time of year. For the rest of 2023, daily global temperature anomalies above 1.5 C became commonplace, to the point that almost half of the days in 2023 were 1.5 C above the temperature of the 1850 period. -1900 and There were two days in November in which, for the first time, the two degrees of increase were reached.
As the Copernicus scientists clarify, “this does not mean that we have exceeded the limits set by the Paris Agreement (since they refer to periods of at least 20 years in which this average temperature anomaly is exceeded) but it sets a disastrous precedent.” “.
The report is peppered with other data that reflects how unusual last year was. From June to December, each month of 2023 was warmer than those same months in preceding years. July and August 2023 were globally the hottest months since records began, as was summer (June to August), the warmest.
The year ended with a December that was also the hottest ever recorded for that period, with an average temperature of 13.51 C, which is almost one degree higher (0.85 C) compared to the average between 1991 and 2020, and 1.78 C more than the pre-industrial era.
Data in Europe
Although Mauro Facchini, director of Earth Observation in the Directorate General of Defense and Space Industry of the European Commission, did not expect good news, he considers that “the annual data presented offer even more evidence about the growing impacts of climate change.” As Facchini recalls, The European Union has committed, in line with the best available science, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030: “There are only six years left and the challenge is clear,” he warned.
If we focus on Europe, 2023 was the second warmest year, with 1.02C above the 1991-2020 average and 0.17C cooler than 2020, the warmest year on record on the continent. Temperatures in Europe were above average for 11 months in 2023 and September was the warmest September on record.
Winter (December 2022-February 2023) is in the European ranking as the second warmest since records began. The summer (June-August) was also very hot, with an average temperature of 19.63 C, which is 0.83 C above the average, making it the fifth warmest on record.
The European autumn (September-November) also had an average temperature above average (1.43 C more) when it recorded 10.96 C. Records that made it the second warmest autumn ever recorded, only 0.03C colder than autumn 2020.
extreme phenomena
The scientists also highlight “the large number of extreme phenomena that were recorded around the globe, including heat waves, floods, droughts and forest fires.” In fact, Carbon emissions linked to forest fires rose 30% compared to 2022 due, above all, to the enormous fires that Canada suffered.
The Copernicus report also includes the concentrations of the main greenhouse gases, which in 2023 reached record levels. Thus, those for carbon dioxide (CO2) were 2.4 ppm (particles per million) higher than those measured in 2022, while those for methane increased by 11 ppb (parts per billion). Specifically, those of CO2 reached 419 parts per million and those of methane, 1,902 parts per billion (a figure that is still high but represents a lower growth rate than the last three years).
Marine heat waves
Another of the climatic characteristics of 2023 were the numerous marine heat waves, which affected regions such as the Mediterranean, the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean, the North Pacific and a good part of the North Atlantic. And as the report points out, the average global temperature of the oceans between April and December was the highest recorded in the database.
The main long-term factor that explains the high ocean temperatures is the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations, but another contributor has been the effect of the El Nio phenomenon, a natural climate variability that began to develop in July 2023 and whose effects will worsen in 2024.
And this warming trend does not seem to be reversing this year. According to what the prestigious former NASA climate scientist James Hansen has told The Guardian, the current situation will be aggravated by El Nio, which could cause an increase in the global average temperature of 1.7 degrees compared to the average in May. that existed before the industrial era.
However, Copernicus scientists emphasize that the El Niño phenomenon alone does not explain the increase in ocean surface temperature.
Therefore, it has not been a good year for the ice at the poles either. Record minimum extensions were recorded in Antarctica in eight months compared to the same time of year. Both daily and monthly ice sheet extent reached record lows in February 2023.
As for the Arctic, sea ice extent in March, when it reaches its annual maximum, was among the four lowest for that time of year in the satellite record. September’s annual low was the sixth lowest.
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