Global Warming: 2023 breaks heat record; warmest in 100,000 years

The world was probably at its warmest in the past 100,000 years last year, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), which said on Tuesday that 2018 was the hottest year on record for the planet.

The milestone was widely anticipated by scientists after multiple climate records were broken. Comparing the current month to the corresponding month in prior years, every month since June has been the hottest on record worldwide.

“This has been a very exceptional year, climate-wise … in a league of its own, even when compared to other very warm years,” C3S Director Carlo Buontempo told the media.

According to C3S, 2023 will be the warmest year on record for global temperatures since 1850. Based on comparisons with paleoclimatic data records from sources including air bubbles in glaciers and tree rings, Buontempo concluded that the year was “very likely” the warmest in the previous 100,000 years.

The earth was 1.48 degrees Celsius warmer on average in 2023 than it was in the pre-industrial era between 1850 and 1900, when people started burning fossil fuels on a large scale and released carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

In the 2015 Paris Agreement, nations committed to avoiding the worst effects of global warming by attempting to keep temperatures from rising above 1.5 Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).

The aim, which calls for an average global temperature of 1.5 degrees Celsius over several decades, has not been exceeded, but according to C3S, the fact that temperatures above the level on almost half of the days in 2023 set “a dire precedent.”

The number of climate targets set by governments and businesses has increased, while CO2 emissions have remained persistently high. In 2023, global CO2 emissions from the burning of gas, oil, and coal reached historic highs.

According to C3S, last year saw the atmosphere’s CO2 content reach 419 parts per million, the highest level ever measured.

Additionally, it was the first year that daily temperatures exceeded 1C above pre-industrial levels. Two days in November were the first time that the temperature was two degrees higher than in the pre-industrial period, C3S said.

The previous hottest year, 2016, was 0.17 degrees higher than last year, shattering the record by a “remarkable” margin, according to Buontempo.

The El Nino weather phenomenon, which warms the surface waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean and raises global temperatures, increased temperatures in 2023 in addition to human-caused climate change.

Extreme and catastrophic weather disasters are made worse with every degree Celsius increase in temperature. The planet’s increased heat in 2023 led to devastating heatwaves that spread from China to Europe, excessive rain that killed thousands of people in Libya due to flooding, and the deadliest wildfire season in Canadian history.

The effects of climate change on the economy are also getting worse. According to data from the National Centers for Environmental Information, at least 25 weather-related disasters costing more than $1 billion occurred in the US. Extended dry spells devastated Argentina’s soybean harvests and Spain’s wheat crops.

(With agency inputs)