Last 12 months on Earth were the hottest ever recorded, analysis finds
The last 12 months were the hottest Earth has ever recorded, according to a new report by Climate Central, a nonprofit science research group.
The peer-reviewed report says burning gasoline, coal, natural gas and other fossil fuels that release planet-warming gases like carbon dioxide, and other human activities, caused the unnatural warming from November 2022 to October 2023.
Over the course of the year, 7.3 billion people, or 90% of humanity, endured at least 10 days of high temperatures that were made at least three times more likely because of climate change.
“People know that things are weird, but they don’t they don’t necessarily know why it’s weird. They don’t connect back to the fact that we’re still burning coal, oil and natural gas,” said Andrew Pershing, a climate scientist at Climate Central.
“I think the thing that really came screaming out of the data this year was nobody is safe. Everybody was experiencing unusual climate-driven heat at some point during the year,” said Pershing.
“This is the hottest temperature that our planet has experienced in something like 125,000 years,” says Pershing, the vice-president for science at Climate Central.
The average global temperature was 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than the pre-industrial climate, which scientists say is close to the limit countries agreed not to go over in the Paris Agreement — a 1.5 C (2.7 F) rise. The impacts were apparent as one in four humans, or 1.9 billion people, suffered from dangerous heat waves.
At this point, said Jason Smerdon, a climate scientist at Columbia University, no one should be caught off guard. “It’s like being on an escalator and being surprised that you’re going up,” he said. “We know that things are getting warmer, this has been predicted for decades.”
Here’s how a few regions were affected by the extreme heat:
1. Extreme heat fueled destructive rainfall because a warmer atmosphere holds more water vapor, which lets storms release more precipitation. Storm Daniel became Africa’s deadliest storm with an estimated death toll that ranges between 4,000 and 11,000, according to officials and aid agencies. Greece, Bulgaria, and Turkey also saw damages and fatalities from Storm Daniel.
2. In India, 1.2 billion people, or 86% of the population, experienced at least 30 days of elevated temperatures, made at least three times more likely by climate change.
3. Drought in Brazil’s Amazon region caused rivers to dry to historic lows, cutting people off from food and fresh water.
4. At least 383 people died in U.S. extreme weather events, with 93 deaths related to the Maui wildfire event, the deadliest U.S. fire of the century.
5. One of every 200 people in Canada evacuated their home due to wildfires, which burn longer and more intensely after long periods of heat dry out the land. Canadian fires sent smoke billowing across much of North America.
6. On average, Jamaica experienced high temperatures made four times more likely by climate change during the last 12 months, making it the country where climate change was most powerfully at work.
Guatemala and Rwanda also experienced temperatures that were made more than four times more likely by climate change.
The researchers also estimated the extent to which 700 cities with populations of at least 1 million experienced extreme heat over the past 12 months, defined as daily temperatures that are expected to occur less than 1% of the time in that region. They did this by comparing recent temperature data with data collected over a reference period of 1991–2020.
The team found that 156 cities in 37 countries experienced five or more consecutive days of extreme heat, with 144 cities experiencing temperatures that were made at least 2 times more likely by climate change. Houston, Texas, had the longest heat streak of 22 days. This was followed by Jakarta, New Orleans, Louisiana, Tangerang in Indonesia and Quijing in China where people faced at least 16 days of extreme heat in a row (see ‘Unbroken heat’). Worldwide, 1.9 billion people, or 24% of the world’s population, endured five consecutive days of extreme heat.
Extreme heat, along with flooding and droughts, is often deadly and displaces thousands of people. “By continuing to burn fossil fuels the way we do, it’s a massive violation of the really basic human rights of the vast majority of the planet,” says Otto.
Next year, El Niño, which is projected to last until at least April 2024, will push temperatures even higher, says Pershing.
“We need to adapt, mitigate and be better prepared for the residual damages because impacts are highly uneven from place to place,” said Kristie Ebi, a professor at the Center for Health and the Global Environment at the University of Washington, citing changes in precipitation, sea level rise, droughts, and wildfires.
The heat of the last year, intense as it was, is tempered because the oceans have been absorbing the majority of the excess heat related to climate change, but they are reaching their limit, said Kim Cobb, a climate scientist at Brown University. “Oceans are really the thermostat of our planet … they are tied to our economy, food sources, and coastal infrastructure.” (AP/Nature)
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