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A woman drinks water in 40°C heat in Istanbul, Turkey, in July this year
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- Author: Matt McGrath and Mark Poynting
- Scroll, BBC News
6 hours ago
Extreme global temperatures are likely to last until 2024, researchers say.
It is now virtually inevitable that this year will be the hottest year on record, with the last two months of 2023 unlikely to reverse the trend.
November continues to record high temperatures worldwide.
October’s temperature record adds to this year’s list of global heat records.
The total number of days on which the politically significant warming mark of 1.5°C was exceeded reached a new record well before the end of the year.
July was so hot that it may have been the hottest month in 120,000 years, while average temperatures in September beat the previous record by 0.5°C.
According to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, October was not as exceptionally hot as September, but it still exceeded the month’s record by an “extraordinary” degree.
The month was 1.7°C warmer than the preindustrial average that is, compared to the time before humanity began burning large amounts of fossil fuels.
The heat recorded so far this year means it is “virtually certain” that 2023 will be the warmest year on record in the world, surpassing 2016.
This is the opinion of several scientific organizations, including Copernicus and the NOAA and Berkeley Earth groups, both in the USA.
“We really don’t see any signs that this year’s string of exceptional record months is over any time soon,” said Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at Berkeley Earth.
“And at this point, across all data sets, it is virtually certain that 2023 will be the hottest year on record. The probability is over 99%,” he told BBC News.
“Recording human suffering”
While many researchers are concerned about the scientific implications of this year’s record temperatures, others point to their realworld consequences.
“The fact that we are experiencing these record temperatures this year also means recordbreaking human suffering,” said Friederike Otto from Imperial College London about the results.
“This year, extreme heat waves and droughts made worse by those extreme temperatures caused thousands of deaths, led to people losing their livelihoods, being displaced, etc. These are the events that matter.”
The main cause of heat is the continuous emission of carbon dioxide, mainly from the combustion of fossil fuels. This year, there is also the rise of El Niño a natural event in which warm water in the eastern Pacific rises to the surface and releases additional heat into the atmosphere.
El Niño conditions have increased in recent months, but have not yet reached their peak.
“This El Niño is strange. Some of the heat we are experiencing is due not only to the increase in El Niño, but also to the rapid replacement of La Niña (ocean cooling climate event) conditions that had depressed temperatures in recent years. years,” said Hausfather.
Scientists aren’t sure whether El Niño is different from other records in recent decades. Some fear that there could be more sea surface warming than previous events, such as 1997 and 2015. But there is no consensus on this.
According to Copernicus, the year to date has already seen a record temperature of 1.43°C above preindustrial levels, predicting that temperatures will remain high in the coming months.
Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, said a combination of her data and UN data suggests that 2023 “could be hotter than anything the planet has seen in 125,000 years.”
This conclusion is based on observations at meteorological stations as well as on complex computer models of the climate system and very old climate records, for example from ice cores and tree growth rings.
This data creates a worrying climate context weeks ahead of the UN climate summit COP28, which begins on November 30th.
“The sense of urgency for ambitious climate action at COP28 has never been greater,” Burgess said.
Impact of rising temperatures around the world
Temperatures in October were well above the global average and several parts of the world faced extreme conditions.
A drought caused by El Niño has led to the driest October in the Panama Canal since 1950. Dry conditions continue to impact operations along this important trade route, heading into the driest time of the year.
Droughts have also hit parts of the Middle East, while deadly floods have hit East Africa.
In Italy, October temperatures were more than 3°C above normal, which was also accompanied by significant flooding in some parts of the country.
In the UK, temperatures were around 1°C above average, while southern England was warmer, at 1.7°C above normal. Humidity also remained high, with average rainfall about 40% above average.
Temperatures remain high around the world in November and hundreds of heat records have already been broken in Japan this month.
Europe recorded temperatures above 35°C for the first time in November, with highs recorded in several parts of Greece.
As these temperatures rise, there are concerns that new extreme events could occur in the coming months.
Parts of Australia, for example, have already warned of an increased risk of forest fires.