The EU’s climate agency reports that 2023 has officially become the warmest year on record, with temperatures rising by 1.48 degrees Celsius over prior records.
This exceptional warmth was a result of both El Niño weather phenomena and human-induced climate change, with global air and sea surface temperatures continuously reaching new highs.
A remarkable and protracted period of warmth was created starting in July, when a new global air temperature record was achieved nearly every day.
Climate change: 2023 is officially the warmest year on record; will 2024 top that record?
The UK also had its second-warmest year ever recorded. The significant margins of the records shattered in 2023 underscore their significance, alarming scientists and posing queries regarding the erratic behavior.
Extreme weather occurrences became more intense as a result of this record warmth that spread around the globe. Widespread destruction was caused by heatwaves, wildfires, droughts, and floods that happened on a bigger scale and at odd times.
The impacts went beyond just changes in air temperature; sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctica fell below average, and glaciers in North America and the European Alps underwent severe melting.
With uncertainty related to the peculiar behavior of the current El Niño, 2024 could break the records set in 2023.
Concerns about the likelihood of going above the critical 1.5-degree Celsius warming threshold set by nearly 200 countries in the 2015 Paris Agreement are raised by this uncertainty.
Even though a one-year breach wouldn’t be against the terms of the agreement, it highlights the concerning trend of exceeding long-term global warming targets.
Recognizing fossil fuel emissions as the main cause of global warming, the COP28 climate summit recently emphasized the urgent need to control emissions as the globe struggles with the effects of rising temperatures.
The wildfire season in Canada was by far the worst on record.—Reuters
The importance of controlling temperature to within a fraction of a degree is underscored by the hope that advancements in renewable energy and electric vehicles will help to mitigate the effects of climate change, even though the climate deal fell short of mandatory promises.
