The summer of 2023 was the hottest since global records were recorded in 1880, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York announced this Thursday.
The months of June, July and August, considered meteorological summer in the Northern Hemisphere, were 0.23 degrees Celsius (ºC) hotter than any other summer recorded by NASA and 1.2 °C warmer than the average summer between 1951 and 1980.
NASA scientists concluded that the month of August alone was 1.2ºC warmer than average.
NASA says this new record comes at a time when exceptional heat has swept much of the world, exacerbated by deadly wildfires in Canada and Hawaii and heat waves in South America, Japan, Europe and the United States, which They simultaneously contributed to the appearance of heavy rains in Italy, Greece and Central Europe.
“The record-breaking summer temperatures of 2023 aren’t just a series of numbers — they have dire real-world consequences. From sweltering temperatures in Arizona and across the country, to wildfires in Canada and extreme flooding in Europe and Asia, the climate extreme is threatening lives and livelihoods around the world,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
For Bill Nelson, “the impacts of climate change are a threat to the planet and future generations.”
NASA assembles its temperature record, known as GISTEMP, from surface air temperature data acquired by tens of thousands of weather stations, as well as sea surface temperature data obtained from buoys and ship-mounted instruments. .
These raw data are analyzed using methods that take into account the variable spacing of temperature stations around the world and the effects of urban warming that can bias the calculations.
NASA climate scientist Josh Willis highlighted that unusually high sea surface temperatures, fueled in part by the return of El Niño, were largely responsible for this summer’s record heat.
Scientific observations and analyzes conducted over decades by NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and other international institutions have shown that this warming has been driven primarily by human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.
At the same time, natural El Niño events in the Pacific inject additional heat into the global atmosphere and are often linked to the hottest years on record.
“With background warming and marine heat waves that have been accumulating for decades, this El Niño has broken all records,” said Willis, highlighting that “the heat waves we are experiencing now are longer, hotter and more violent”, in addition to the fact that the atmosphere “can also hold more water and, when it is hot and humid, it is even more difficult for the human body to regulate its temperature.
Several scientists estimate that the greatest impacts of El Niño could occur in February, March and April 2024.
“Unfortunately, climate change is happening. The things we said would happen are happening. And it will get worse if we continue to emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into our atmosphere,” said Gavin Schmidt, a climate scientist and director of the Goddard Institute for Climate Change. The NASA. for Space Studies.
Source: TSF
