2023 Set to be the Hottest Year in 125,000 Years: EU Scientists

2023 will be the hottest in 125 thousand years

2023 is set to be the warmest in 125,000 years, EU scientists said Wednesday, after data showed this October was the hottest ever for that era, CNN reported.

Last month broke the temperature record set by October 2019, according to the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).

“The record was broken by 0.4°C, which is a huge difference,” C3S deputy head Samantha Burgess said, describing the anomaly as “very extreme”. According to the data, the average air temperature for October was 1.7° higher than the pre-industrial period between 1850 and 1900.

Harmful greenhouse gas emissions caused by human activity are

one of the main ones culprits for the heat in world Wide

In addition to the increase in degrees in 2023, however, the appearance of the climate phenomenon El Niño (the warm current in the Pacific Ocean, which affects the world climate – b.a.) also contributes. This year is expected to replace the previous heat record holder – 2016, C3S also points out, noting that then it was also a period of particularly strong El Niño.

In order to make a forecast that covers a period of more than 100,000 years, “Copernicus” collects data from other agencies as well, since EU scientists have information since 1940. “When we combine our data with that of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we can say that this is the warmest year for the last 125,000 years,” explained Burgess.

According to scientists, the only other case of a month with such large temperature records was September this year.

“September really surprised us. So after last month, it’s hard to tell if we’re in a new climate state. But now

the records they continue to accumulate and they start to me surprise less

than before”, commented Burgess.

“Now most El Niño years are record years because the additional warming from the phenomenon is added to the steady rate of human-caused global warming,” explained University of Pennsylvania climatologist Michael Mann. Climate warming has become particularly clear with the natural disasters that have befallen the world this year – devastating fires, strong storms, floods that have claimed tens of thousands of lives around the world.

According to Piers Forster, a climatologist at the University of Leeds, humanity must not allow these natural disasters to “become the new normal”. If we quickly limit greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade, he says, we can halve the rate of warming.

Although the Paris Agreement calls for limiting global warming to 1.5° above pre-industrial averages, this applies to long-term temperatures. This means that if this threshold is crossed 1-2 times in the next few years, the agreement will not be violated. However, the more often the limit is crossed, the closer the world comes to defaulting on the agreement.

“We can say with almost absolute certainty that 2023 will be the warmest year on record, and it is currently 1.4° above the pre-industrial average,” Burgess said. A UN report also recently warned that if emissions are not reduced, the window to avoid 1.5° global warming may close before 2030.

“Never before has there been a stronger sense of urgency around ambitious climate action in the context of COP28,” added Burgess. (COP28 – this year’s UN conference on climate change – b.a)

Meanwhile, the World Meteorological Organization of the United Nations (WMO) reported that

El Nino can to continue until until April 2024,

as “there is a 90% chance that it will persist throughout the coming Northern Hemisphere winter”.

El Nino usually occurs every 2 – 7 years, and it is normal to raise global temperatures. Against the background of global warming, however, the combination has the potential to be dangerous. WMO chief Petteri Talas warned that with 2023 on track to become a temperature record, “next year could be even warmer”.

In his words, this is “unequivocally” due to an increasing concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and “extreme phenomena such as heat, drought, forest fires, heavy rains and floods will intensify in some regions, which will lead to serious consequences”.

El Niño last appeared between 2018 and 2019, followed by a long period of La Niña (the cold current in the Pacific Ocean, the opposite of El Niño – b.a) that ended earlier this year. According to the WMO, the current El Niño will warm the central equatorial Pacific Ocean by April, leading to warmer temperatures in most of the world’s oceans as well as nearly all land areas.

More above-normal rainfall is expected in the Horn of Africa, La Plata in South America, parts of North America, and central and eastern Asia.

2023-11-08 21:00:00
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