The Earth has experienced the hottest summer ever recorded in the northern hemisphere this year, with a record August that culminates a season of brutal and deadly temperatures, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced Wednesday.
Last month was not only the hottest August ever recorded by scientists using modern equipment, it was also the second warmest month measured, just behind July 2023, the WMO and the European climate service Copernicus announced.
August was around 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial averages, which is the warming threshold the world is trying not to cross.
But the 1.5ºC threshold is calculated for decades, not just a month, so scientists do not consider this brief step significant, according to the US agency AP.
So far, 2023 is the second warmest year on record, behind 2016, according to Copernicus.
The southern hemisphere, where many heat records were broken in the middle of the southern winter, was not spared, according to Copernicus, quoted by the French agency AFP.
“The June-July-August 2023 season, which corresponds to summer in the northern hemisphere, where the vast majority of the world’s population lives,” was by far the hottest ever recorded in the world, with a global average temperature of 16 , 77 °C,” he said.
This value is 0.66 °C higher than the averages for the period 1991-2020, already marked by an increase in global average temperatures due to global warming caused by human activity.
It is also well above, by around 02 tenths, the previous record set in 2019.
July of this year was the hottest month ever measured and August is now the second hottest, according to Copernicus.
In the first eight months of the year, the global average temperature is “only 0.01°C behind 2016, the hottest year ever measured.”
But this record could fall, taking into account seasonal forecasts and the return of the El Niño weather phenomenon in the Pacific, which is synonymous with further warming.
“2023 will probably be the hottest year…humanity has ever known,” Samantha Burgess, deputy head of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, told AFP.
The Copernicus database dates back to 1940, but can be compared to previous millennia, based on tree rings or ice cores.
“The three months we just experienced are the warmest in about 120,000 years, that is, since the beginning of human history,” Burgess said.
Despite three consecutive years of La Niña, the opposite phenomenon of El Niño, which partially masked the warming, the years 2015-2022 were already the warmest ever measured.
An important role in this phenomenon is played by the overheating of the seas, which continue to absorb 90% of the excess heat caused by human activity since the industrial era.
Since April, the average temperature of the seas at the surface has risen to unprecedented levels.
From July 31 to August 31, “every day even the previous record, set in March 2016, was exceeded,” according to Copernicus, reaching the unprecedented symbolic mark of 21°C, well above all records.
“The warming of the oceans causes a warming of the atmosphere and an increase in humidity, which results in more intense precipitation and more energy available for tropical cyclones,” Burgess explained.
Global warming also affects biodiversity because there are “less nutrients in the ocean and less oxygen,” threatening the survival of flora and fauna, he said.
The scientist also cited coral bleaching, harmful algal blooms and “the potential collapse of reproductive cycles.”
“Temperatures will continue to rise as long as we do not turn off the emissions tap,” mainly those resulting from the burning of coal, oil and gas, he warned, three months before COP28 in Dubai.
The United Nations Climate Conference, at which a battle to end fossil fuels is expected, should return humanity to the path of the Paris Agreement.
The agreement called for limiting global warming to well below 2°C and, if possible, 1.5°C compared to the pre-industrial era.
Source: TSF
