2023 is virtually certain to be the hottest year on record – an ominous milestone just weeks from the global Cop28 UN summit where the need to speed up the fight against the climate crisis becomes more urgent by the day.
Scientists on Tuesday confirmed what most have said was likely in the wake of record-breaking spring and summer temperatures around the world. October 2023 was also the warmest October on record globally.
“We can say with near certainty that 2023 will be the warmest year on record, and is currently 1.43C above the preindustrial average,” said Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, who made the announcement.
“The sense of urgency for ambitious climate action going into Cop28 has never been higher.”
Copernicus also found that:
The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), the EU forecasting and climate agency, based its findings on billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations around the world.
Scientists offered blunt responses to the findings.
“Laid out so starkly, the 2023 numbers on air temperatures, sea temperatures, sea ice and the rest look like something out of a Hollywood movie,” said David Reay, executive director of the Edinburgh Climate Change Institute, University of Edinburgh.
“Indeed, if our current global efforts to tackle climate change were a film it would be called ‘Hot Mess’.”
