Scientists in the European Union (EU) revealed on Wednesday that 2023 is set to be the world’s hottest year on record for 125,000 years, after data showed last month was the warmest October by a huge margin.
According to the Deputy Director of the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), Samantha Burgess, last month exceeded the previous highest average October temperature since 2019 by 0.4°C, describing the temperature anomaly as “very extreme”.
The C3S statement suggested that this anomaly made 2023 as a whole “almost certain” to be the warmest year on record.
The heatwave is a result of fossil fuel emissions and the El Niño climate, which warms the surface waters of the eastern Pacific Ocean.
Although 2016 is the hottest year on record so far, 2023 is expected to surpass it.
As the Copernicus data set goes back to 1940, scientists in the EU were able to combine their data with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), finding that this is the warmest year in 125,000 years, Burgess said.
Long-term data from the United Nations (UN) IPCC climate science panel includes readings from sources such as ice cores, tree rings and coral deposits. Deccan Herald mentionted.
Meanwhile, climate change is fueling increasingly destructive extremes.
In 2023, this includes floods that killed thousands in Libya, severe heatwaves in South America and Canada’s worst fire season on record.
Globally, the October mean surface air temperature of 15.3°C (59.5°F) was 1.7°C higher than the 1850–1900 mean October temperature, defined by Copernicus as the pre-industrial period.
The only other month to beat the temperature record by such a wide margin was September 2023.
“September really, really surprised us,” Burgess said. “So after last month, it’s hard to tell if we’re in a new climate state. But now the records keep falling and I’m less surprised than a month ago.”
El Nino effect
The World Meteorological Organization said on Wednesday that the ongoing El Niño weather pattern, which is expected to last until at least April 2024, is raising concerns of more heat-related disasters, including in Australia, which is bracing for a season of severe bushfires due to hot and dry conditions.
“The most El Niño years are now on record because El Niño’s extra global heat adds to the steady rise in human-caused warming,” said Michael Mann, a climate scientist at the University of Pennsylvania.
Mann’s findings come three weeks before the Conference of the Parties (COP28), the UN climate talks in Dubai, where nearly 200 countries will debate stronger action on climate change.
The main focus will be whether governments agree to phase out the burning of carbon dioxide-emitting fossil fuels.
The UN and researchers predict that global fossil fuel production will double by 2030 due to fossil fuel producers’ current plans to extract coal, oil and natural gas.
Despite countries setting ambitious targets to gradually reduce emissions, global CO2 emissions reached a record high in 2022, underscoring the need for urgent action.
“We must not let the catastrophic floods, fires, storms and heatwaves seen this year become the new normal,” said Piers Forster, a climate scientist at the University of Leeds.
“By rapidly reducing greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade, we can halve the rate of warming,” he added.
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