Heat records have fallen like dominoes. This is stated by the EU's climate service Copernicus, which confirms that 2023 was the warmest year ever measured on Earth – 0.17 degrees above the previous record.
Extreme heat in Arizona, devastating floods in Libya, and record-breaking ocean temperatures that caused coral bleaching off Florida are just a few examples of the extreme events that are expected to worsen in the wake of climate change and will mark 2023.
It goes down in history as the warmest year ever recorded since humans began compiling temperature data 174 years ago. Each month from June to December was slightly warmer than the corresponding month the previous year, which is partly explained by El Niño. The weather phenomenon can temporarily raise the global average temperature by 0.1-0.2 degrees.
”2023 was an exceptional year with climate records falling like dominoes,” says Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the EU's climate monitoring service Copernicus, in a comment.
The global The average temperature was 14.98 degrees, according to Copernicus. That is 0.17 degrees warmer than the previous record year of 2016.
”"It's a big increase," says Erik Kjellström, professor of climatology at SMHI, to TT.
”"The fact that 2023 was a very warm year can be partly explained by the fact that it was a year with a strong El Niño. But that is not enough to explain why it was so much warmer than normal in large parts of the world's oceans and in many other places."”
It was also the first year in which all days were more than 1 degree warmer than pre-industrial times. Almost half were over 1.5 degrees warmer, and in November, global temperatures were 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels for the first time on two days.
To limit To address the most devastating consequences of climate change, the world has agreed to limit global warming to 2 degrees, preferably 1.5 degrees, compared to pre-industrial times. This will be achieved by reducing emissions, mainly caused by the burning of oil, coal and natural gas.
When the Paris Agreement talks about temperature levels, it refers to long-term warming over several decades. But even now, as the world has experienced a warming of 1.5 degrees, torrential rains, heat waves and fires are already being felt – the kind of extreme weather events that are expected to continue to become more frequent and intense as temperatures rise.
”You can see it as a foretaste of what is to come,” says Kjellström.
”"We are moving towards higher and higher temperatures, but some parts of the climate system are reacting quite slowly. So when in 5, 10 or 15 years we get to a world that is really 1.5 degrees warmer in the long term, for example, the oceans will generally be warmer. So it is not certain that it will look the same as it does now."”
The question is what awaits in 2024. If El Niño weakens, it usually affects global temperatures, which then drop.
”"We will see continued global warming. 2023 clearly shows that the trend towards increasingly higher temperatures due to increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere continues," says Kjellström.
”But that doesn't mean that every single year will be warmer than 2023, it could be a record that stands for a few years to come.”
Source: TT-DI.SE
