- 2023 is on track to be the hottest year on record, scientists warned on Thursday, following exceptionally high temperatures in September and the hottest summer in human history.
- The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said global average temperatures from January to September were 1.4 degrees Celsius higher than in the pre-industrial period from 1850 to 1900.
- September’s temperature anomalies prompted one researcher to describe the results as nothing short of “absolutely mind-bogglingly banal.”
A boat lies on cracked earth in the Bolivian Altiplano in the Bahia (Bay) Cohana area of Lake Titicaca, shared by Bolivia and Peru, on September 22, 2023.
Aizar Raldes | Afp | Getty Images
2023 is on track to be the hottest year on record, scientists warned on Thursday, following exceptionally high temperatures in September and the hottest summer in human history.
The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said global average temperatures from January to September were 1.4 degrees Celsius higher than in the pre-industrial period from 1850 to 1900.
This was just over 0.5 degrees Celsius higher than average and 0.05 degrees Celsius higher than the corresponding period in 2016 – currently the hottest year on record.
Scientists at C3S said September recorded the largest temperature anomalies of any year since 1940, with the month found to be an incredible 1.75 degrees Celsius warmer overall compared to the pre-industrial reference period.
The temperature anomalies in September prompted a researcher to do this describe the results are nothing less than “absolutely astonishingly banal”.
Extreme heat is fueled by the climate crisis, the main cause of which is the burning of fossil fuels.
“The unseasonably unprecedented temperatures observed in September – after a record-breaking summer – broke records many times over,” Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, said in a statement.
“This extreme month has given 2023 the dubious honor of top spot – on track to be the warmest year, some 1.4°C above pre-industrial average temperatures.”
Burgess said that two months before the COP28 climate conference, “the sense of urgency for ambitious climate action has never been more important.”
World leaders will gather in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, from November 30 to December 12 to discuss tackling the worsening climate crisis.
As was widely expected, a major UN report released last month confirmed that the world is currently not on track to meet the long-term goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement, a landmark agreement aimed at curbing global warming Limit 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
The world has already warmed by around 1.1 degrees Celsius after more than a century of burning fossil fuels and unequal and unsustainable energy and land use. In fact, it is this increase in temperature that is triggering a series of extreme weather events around the world.
For Europe, C3S scientists said September 2023 was the warmest September on record, with more than 2.5 degrees Celsius above the 1991 to 2020 average and 1.1 degrees Celsius above September 2020, the warmest on record.
Supporters of the climate activist group Fridays for Future (FFF) protest during a global climate strike Fridays for Future on September 15, 2023 in Berlin, Germany.
Maja Hitij | Getty Images News | Getty Images
C3S also said El Niño conditions continued to develop over the equatorial eastern Pacific.
El Niño is a naturally occurring climate pattern that causes higher temperatures worldwide. The UN weather agency declared El Niño to begin on July 4 and warned that its return paves the way for a likely increase in global temperatures and extreme weather.
Pope Francis warned Wednesday that “the world we live in is collapsing and may be approaching the breaking point.”
His comments followed a strong warning from UN Secretary-General António Guterres last month. Guterres said at the UN headquarters in New York City in mid-September: “Humanity has opened the gates to hell.”
“The terrible heat is having a terrible impact,” he added. “Distraught farmers watching their crops washed away by floods; oppressive temperatures that cause illness; and thousands fleeing in fear as historic fires rage.”