It is well known that 2023 will go down in history as an extremely hot year. Already in November, Nettavisen wrote that 2023 would probably be the hottest year ever recorded.
Now the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service says that 2023 was probably the warmest year in at least 100,000 years. Director Carlo Buontempo of Copernicus put it this way:
– There were simply no cities, no books, no agriculture or livestock on this planet the last time the temperature was this high.
Fell like dominoes
Deputy Director Samantha Burgess put it this way then Copernicus presented the climate year 2023.
– 2023 was an exceptional year, where climate records fell like dominoes. Not only is 2023 the hottest year on record. It is also the first year with all days above one degree Celsius warmer than the pre-industrial period. Temperatures in 2023 are likely to exceed those of any period in at least the last 100,000 years.
Although the globe has not experienced such high temperatures for many years, it was slightly colder than normal in Norway in the last 30 years.
Main points in the report
Here are some of the report’s highlights for 2023:
* Global average temperature was 14.98 degrees Celsius, which is 0.17 degrees higher than 2016, which was the previous record year.
* 2023 was 0.60 degrees warmer than the 1991 to 2020 average and 1.48 °C warmer than the pre-industrial level from 1850-1900.
* Every single day in 2023 was warmer than the pre-industrial average (1850 to 1900).
* July and August were the hottest months on record.
* Global mean sea surface temperatures (SSTs) were unusually high, reaching record levels for the April to December season.
* In Europe, the temperature was 1.02 degrees above the 1991-2020 average, but still 0.17 degrees cooler than 2020, which was the warmest year on record in Europe.
Global warming
The researchers note that the average temperature on earth is rising. After an unusually large jump, the temperature in 2023 was almost 1.5 degrees higher than at the end of the 19th century. There is no doubt that human activity has warmed the globe, the UN’s climate panel (IPCC) determined in 2021.
The researchers believe that the warming is mainly due to emissions of CO2, methane and other greenhouse gases that reinforce the atmosphere’s natural greenhouse effect. At the same time, the atmosphere is cleaned of polluting particles that have a cooling effect.
The emissions originate from the burning of coal, oil and gas, deforestation, agriculture and industrial processes. This is in addition to emissions of greenhouse gases from natural sources.
Since the beginning of the 1990s, the world community has discussed measures to cut global climate emissions. Nevertheless, they continue to rise. Global warming is leading to more extreme heat waves, new rainfall patterns and more frequent droughts and flood disasters in many parts of the world.
In addition, glaciers are melting, and seas are rising. A number of countries risk increasing migration and problems in agriculture. Many animal and plant species may eventually become extinct.
(Source: IPCC, NASA, NOAA, Copernicus, NTB)
2024-01-10 19:24:34
#warmest #year #years
