2023 on track to be the hottest year on record, say scientists

November 8, 2023 - Scientists have issued a grave warning that 2023 is on track to become the hottest year ever recorded, with global temperatures currently exceeding the pre-industrial average by 1.43°C. This dire news comes just before the landmark climate summit, Cop28, scheduled to take place this month.

Samantha Burgess, the deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, stated, "We can say with near certainty that 2023 will be the warmest year on record. The sense of urgency for ambitious climate action going into Cop28 has never been higher."

Recent data from Copernicus shows that October 2023 was the hottest October ever recorded globally, with temperatures surpassing late 19th-century averages by a staggering 1.7°C.

The rising global temperatures are attributed to the relentless emission of heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, and other human activities. Since the Industrial Revolution, the planet's temperature has increased by 1.2°C.

The elevated global temperature anomaly in October 2023 was the second highest across all months in the dataset, trailing only the month before. This record-breaking heat has had severe consequences, leading to extreme heatwaves and droughts, resulting in thousands of deaths, displacement, and economic losses. As Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College London, highlights, "That is why the Paris Agreement is a human rights treaty, and not keeping to the goals in it is violating human rights on a vast scale."

The 2015 Paris Agreement set the target of limiting global warming to 1.5°C by the end of the century. However, current policies are set to result in a temperature increase of approximately 2.4°C.

A combination of factors, including increased greenhouse gas emissions, the return of the natural weather pattern El Niño, a reduction in sulfur pollution, and a volcanic eruption in Tonga, likely contributed to the extreme temperatures observed last month.

Scientists expect El Niño conditions to persist until at least April 2024, making it likely that 2024 could see even higher temperatures.

Copernicus reported that the average global mean temperature for the first ten months of 2023 was the highest on record, surpassing the previous record holder for the hottest year, 2016, by 0.1°C.

Richard Allan, a climate scientist at the University of Reading, stressed that only rapid and significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions across all sectors can prevent these recurring records of extreme warmth. Such action is essential to limit the increasing severity of extreme weather events associated with a rapidly warming world, encompassing wet, hot, and dry extremes.

The warning serves as a stark reminder of the pressing need for global climate action and the challenges that Cop28 delegates will face as they strive to address the climate crisis.