This year will be “virtually certain” to be the warmest year in 125,000 years, say EU scientists – Portal

BRUSSELS, Nov 8 (Portal) – This year will be “almost certain” to be the warmest in 125,000 years, European Union scientists said on Wednesday, after data showed last month was the world’s hottest October in that period .

Last month significantly exceeded the previous October temperature record from 2019, said the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).

“The record was beaten by 0.4 degrees Celsius, which is a huge difference,” said C3S deputy director Samantha Burgess, who called the October temperature anomaly “very extreme.”

The heat is a result of continued greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, coupled with the occurrence of the El Niño weather phenomenon this year, which is warming surface waters in the eastern Pacific.

Globally, the average surface air temperature in October was 1.7 degrees Celsius warmer than the same month in 1850-1900, which Copernicus defined as the pre-industrial period.

The record-breaking October means 2023 is now “almost certain” to be the warmest year on record, C3S said in a statement. The previous record was 2016 – another El Nino year.

The Copernicus data set dates back to 1940. “If we combine our data with the IPCC, we can say this is the warmest year in 125,000 years,” Burgess said.

[1/4]A woman walks with a water cooler on her head to fetch water from a nearby hand pump during a heatwave on the outskirts of Jacobabad, Pakistan, May 16, 2022. Portal/Akhtar Soomro/File Photo Acquire Rights

Longer-term data from the UN climate science body IPCC includes measurements from sources such as ice cores, tree rings and coral deposits.

The only time a month before October exceeded the temperature record by this much was in September 2023.

“September really surprised us. After the last month, it is difficult to say whether we are in a new climate state. But now the records continue to fall and they surprise me less than they did a month ago,” Burgess said.

Michael Mann, a climate scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, said: “Most El Nino years are now record-breaking because additional global warming from El Nino contributes to the steady increase in human-caused warming.”

Climate change is leading to ever more destructive extremes. This year, these included floods that killed thousands of people in Libya, severe heat waves in South America and Canada’s worst wildfire season on record.

“We must not allow this year’s devastating floods, wildfires, storms and heatwaves to 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.

Although countries are setting increasingly ambitious targets to gradually reduce emissions, this has not yet happened. Global CO2 emissions reached a record high in 2022.

Reporting by Kate Abnett; Edited by Jan Harvey

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Kate Abnett reports from Brussels on EU climate and energy policy, covering Europe’s green transition and how climate change is affecting people and ecosystems across the EU. Other topic areas include international climate diplomacy. Before joining Portal, Kate covered emissions and energy markets for Argus Media in London. She is among the teams whose coverage of Europe’s energy crisis won two Portal Journalist of the Year awards in 2022.

Gloria Dickie covers climate and environmental issues for Portal. She lives in London. Her interests include biodiversity loss, Arctic science, the cryosphere, international climate diplomacy, climate change and public health, and human-wildlife conflict. Previously, she worked as a freelance environmental journalist for seven years, writing for publications such as the New York Times, the Guardian, Scientific American and Wired magazine. Dickie was a 2022 Livingston Awards for Young Journalists finalist in the international reporting category for her climate reporting from Svalbard. She is also a contributing writer at WW Norton.