November is the sixth straight month to set a heat record
The last half year has truly been shocking, scientists are running out of adjectives to describe this
European Union scientists said on Wednesday that 2023 would be the warmest year on record, as global mean temperature for the first 11 months of the year hit the highest level on record, 1.46 degrees Celsius (2.63 degrees Fahrenheit) above the 1850-1900 average.
For the sixth month in a row, Earth set a new monthly record for heat, and also added the hottest autumn to the litany of record-breaking heat this year, the European climate agency calculated. And with only one month left, 2023 is on the way to smashing the record for hottest year.
The record comes as governments are in marathon negotiations on whether to, for the first time, phase out the use of CO2-emitting coal, oil and gas, the main source of warming emissions, at the COP28 summit in Dubai.
The temperature for the January-November period was 0.13C higher than the average for the same period in 2016, currently the warmest calendar year on record, the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said.
November 2023 was the warmest November on record globally, with an average surface air temperature of 14.22C, 0.85C above the 1991-2020 average for November and 0.32C above the previous warmest November, in 2020, Copernicus added.
This year “has now had six record breaking months and two record breaking seasons. The extraordinary global November temperatures, including two days warmer than 2C above preindustrial, mean that 2023 is the warmest year in recorded history,” deputy director of C3S Samantha Burgess said in a statement.
The boreal autumn September–November was also the warmest on record globally by a large margin, with an average temperature of 15.30C, 0.88C above average, EU scientists said.
“As long as greenhouse gas concentrations keep rising, we can’t expect different outcomes from those seen this year. The temperature will keep rising and so will the impacts of heatwaves and droughts. Reaching net zero as soon as possible is an effective way to manage our climate risks,” C3S director, Carlo Buontempo added.
Efforts are lagging to meet the 2015 Paris Agreement goal of keeping the global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, beyond which scientists warn of a severe impact on weather, health and agriculture.
The EU has among the most ambitious climate change policies of any major economy, having passed laws to deliver its 2030 target to cut net emissions by 55% from 1990 levels, which analysts say is the minimum needed to reach net zero emissions by 2050.
The 2015 Paris climate agreement set a goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times over the long term and failing that at least 2 degrees (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). Diplomats, scientists, activists and others meeting at the United Nations climate conference in Dubai for nearly two weeks are trying to find ways to limit warming to those levels, but the planet isn’t cooperating.
Scientists calculate with the promises countries around the world have made and the actions they have taken, Earth is on track to warm 2.7 to 2.9 degrees Celsius (4.9 to 5.2 degrees) above pre-industrial times.
The northern autumn is also the hottest fall the world has had on record, Copernicus calculated.
Copernicus records go back to 1940. United States government calculated records go back to 1850. Scientists using proxies such as ice cores, tree rings and corals have said this is the warmest decade Earth has seen in about 125,000 years, dating back before human civilization. And the last several months have been the hottest of the last decade.
Scientists say there are two driving forces behind the six straight record hottest months in a row. One is human-caused climate change from the burning of coal, oil and gas. That’s like an escalator. But the natural El Nino-La Nina cycle is like jumping up or down on that escalator.
The world is in a potent El Nino, which is a temporary warming of parts of the central Pacific that changes weather worldwide, and that adds to global temperatures already spiked by climate change.
It’s only going to get warmer as long as the world keeps pouring greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, Burgess said. And she said that means “catastrophic floods, fires, heat waves, droughts will continue.’’
“2023 is very likely to be a cool year in the future unless we do something about our dependence on fossil fuels,” Burgess said. (Reuters/AP)