It started in June this year. Then came July, August, September and October. Now it’s November’s turn. According to the Copernicus climate system, last month was the hottest November ever recorded on Earth. According to the European Observatory, amid the climate crisis, the planet is on track to experience 2023 as the hottest year in history.
The other months of 2023 are also at least among the ten hottest always in relation to the same period in other years.
According to Copernicus, the average surface temperature in November was 14.22 °C, around 0.85 °C above the average for the period from 1991 to 2020. The value is 0.32 °C above the previous monthly record from 2020.
“November is experiencing exceptional temperatures around the world, including two days of more than 2°C [da média de temperatura] preindustrial times mean that 2023 will be the hottest year on record,” says Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service.
Compared to the average temperature of November in the preindustrial period (18501900), the unusual measurement in November 2023 is even clearer: the month was around 1.75°C warmer.
From January to November, the average temperature recorded on the planet was the highest ever recorded, at 1.46 °C above the average temperature of the preindustrial period. The value is also above the average for the first eleven months of 2016, the hottest year on record.
The Paris Agreement, which came into force in 2015, stipulates that humanity must make efforts to keep the average temperature on Earth from increasing by no more than 2°C, but preferably below 1.5°C.
Despite the data for the current year, this does not necessarily mean that the goals of the Paris Agreement have not been achieved, as the agreement covers longer periods. Nevertheless, the current situation, combined with countries’ current climate commitments, makes the goal of keeping global warming below 1.5 °C a long way off.
Also taken into account by Copernicus, El Niño is an event that affects surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean and causes various climate effects in other regions but according to the European Observatory, the observed anomalies are for the same times of the year year are lower than those recorded in the strong 2015 event.
The Copernicus data will be released as part of the climate negotiations at COP28, the UN conference on climate change, in Dubai, where the possible targets for fossil fuels such as “reduction” or “elimination” will be discussed, amid record fossil fuel presence Fuel lobbyists.
The current COP also featured its president, Sultan alJaber, president of Adnoc, a stateowned oil company in the United Arab Emirates, who rejected the science that guides the climate issue. British newspaper The Guardian revealed a video conference in which alJaber claimed there was no science behind the goal of eliminating fossil fuels which is false.
Following the unveiling, the President of COP28 called a press conference with IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) President Jim Skea. In it, alJaber reiterated respect for science and said he would focus on negotiations. Skea, in turn, highlighted the data on the gradual abandonment of fossil fuels.
Copernicus is not the only one who points out that 2023 will be the hottest year in history. During COP28, an analysis by the United Nationsaffiliated WMO (World Meteorological Organization) was published that came to the same conclusion.
According to WMO analysis, the current year’s average temperature is expected to be 1.4°C above preindustrial levels, resulting in, as mentioned above, a “deafening cacophony” of broken climate records.
“As long as greenhouse gas concentrations continue to rise, we cannot expect any different results than this year. Temperatures will continue to rise and the impact of heatwaves and droughts will also increase,” says Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service.
A report released this week predicts record fossil fuel emissions will occur worldwide in 2023.
In general, Copernicus has data starting in 1940. However, Burgess, deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, recently pointed out that the potential for historical temperature analysis goes far beyond that.
“If we combine our data with that of the IPCC, we can say that this is the hottest year in the last 125,000 years,” Burgess said.