Last year was the hottest ever recorded. This was officially confirmed on Tuesday by an annual report from the European climate service Copernicus.
It was on average 1.48 degrees warmer than before industrialization. The year 2023 was therefore an “exceptional year, in which climate records fell like dominoes,” Copernicus deputy director Samantha Burgess summarizes the report.
The United Nations World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced at the end of November that it expected this heat record. And Copernicus said in October that 2023 was on track to be the warmest on record. The climate service therefore did not expect good news from this report. “But this annual report once again proves the increasing pressure of climate change.”
1 degree warmer every day
For the first time, every day last year was at least 1 degree warmer than before industrialization. Almost half of the days were 1.5 degrees warmer and two days in November exceeded the 2 degree mark for the first time. World leaders agreed in Paris in 2015 that the temperature increase must remain below 2 degrees and preferably below 1.5 degrees.
“The temperature in 2023 was probably higher than at any other time in the past 100,000 years,” says Burgess.
Copernicus argues that the climate is becoming less and less like the conditions in which civilization developed. This has “far-reaching consequences for the agreements made in Paris.” Society must prepare for the future and reduce CO2 emissions as quickly as possible, the climate service emphasizes.
Greenhouse gas emissions
Greenhouse gas emissions are the main cause of the high temperatures, Copernicus emphasizes. Last year, the natural phenomenon El Niño also contributed to the heat. El Niño is a complex weather phenomenon that causes, among other things, warming of the ocean water at the equator. As a result, the ocean temperature in 2023 was also unprecedentedly high.