If 2023 set a new record for average temperature over a full year, it also marks a clear break with the past by surpassing dozens of global daily benchmarks, according to data from Europe's Copernicus Observatory analyzed by AFP.
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This data, released on Tuesday, covers the average global temperature on each day from January 1, 1940 to December 31, 2023.
Translated from English from the Copernicus Agency website
Of the nearly 30,700 days since 1940, the 46 hottest days in 2023 were recorded in July and August during the Northern Hemisphere summer.
The record for the hottest day now belongs to July 6, 2023, with a global average temperature of 17.08 °C. The previous daily record of 16.79 °C from August 14, 2016 will not only be deleted, but will also be returned to 47th place.
November 17th and 18th also entered a previously unknown zone, with for the first time in history daily measurements being 2°C warmer than the average for the same day in the pre-industrial era (1850-1900), the one used by the UN Reference period.
Also unprecedented, in 2023, every day of the year was at least 1°C warmer than pre-industrial normals.
For almost half the year (173 days), this anomaly exceeded the +1.5°C threshold, which has become the symbolic target of the Paris Agreement.
This represents 47.4% of the days of the year, a far cry from previous observations: in 2016, the previous record year, only 77 days (21% of the year) had exceeded this value, which was exceeded for the first time in 2015.
These data do not mean that the Paris Agreement goal (“continue efforts to limit temperature rise to +1.5°C”) has officially been exceeded, emphasizes the Copernicus Observatory, because it refers to climate averages over much longer periods Periods of “at least 20 years” were measured.
However, daily anomalies show that the weather Earth experienced before 1900 is becoming increasingly distant.
Thus, the month of October 2023, in the middle of autumn in the Northern Hemisphere, was as hot as the average August in pre-industrial times (15.3 ° C), before the burning of fossil fuels influenced the climate.
The last time Earth experienced a day less than 0.5°C warmer than the 1850-1900 average for the same day was June 24, 2008.
And to find a day colder than the 1850-1900 average, you have to go back to… October 8, 1992, more than 31 years ago.