Earth experienced the northern hemisphere’s hottest summer on record this year, with a record August culminating in a season of unforgiving and deadly temperatures, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced on Wednesday.
Last month was not only the warmest August ever measured by scientists using modern equipment, it was also the second warmest month measured, just after July 2023, the WMO and the European climate service Copernicus announced.
August was about 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial averages, which is the warming threshold the world is trying not to exceed.
But the 1.5ºC threshold is calculated over decades, not just a month, so scientists don’t consider this short passage significant, the AP said.
2023 could be the hottest year on record
According to Copernicus, 2023 is the second warmest year on record so far, after 2016.
The southern hemisphere, where many heat records were broken in the middle of the Australian winter, was not spared, Copernicus said, 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 on record in the world, with a global average temperature of 16.77 °C. ” he said.
“The three months we’ve just had are the warmest in about 120,000 years, in fact, in human history,” Samantha Burgess, deputy director of Copernicus, told AFP.
“Climate change has begun,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
“Scientists have long warned of the consequences of our addiction to fossil fuels,” he added. “Our climate is imploding faster than we can handle it, with extreme weather events hitting every corner of the planet,” he added.
Record sea surface temperatures played a major role in the increase in heat throughout the summer, with marine heat waves reaching the North Atlantic and Mediterranean.
“Looking at the extra heat we have on the surface of the ocean, chances are 2023 will be the hottest year on record,” said Burgess.
The global average temperature for the first eight months of 2023 is the second highest ever recorded, just 0.01ºC below the 2016 reference level, the report said.
If the Northern Hemisphere experiences a “normal” winter, “we can pretty much say that 2023 will be the hottest year humanity has ever lived,” predicts Burgess.
oceans are warming
According to scientists, the oceans have absorbed 90% of the excess heat produced by human activity since the beginning of the industrial age.
This excess heat continues to accumulate as greenhouse gases — especially from oil, gas and coal — build up in the Earth’s atmosphere.
With the exception of the polar regions, global average sea surface temperatures every day this summer surpassed the previous record set in March 2016, from July 31 to August 31.
Average ocean temperatures have regularly broken seasonal heat records since April.
Warmer oceans are also less able to absorb carbon dioxide (CO2), exacerbating the vicious cycle of global warming and disrupting fragile ecosystems.
Antarctic sea ice is at record levels for this time of year, with monthly readings 12% below average, “by far the largest negative anomaly for August since satellite observations began” in the 1970s, according to Copernicus .
Warmer temperatures are likely: The El Niño weather phenomenon — which is warming the waters in the South Pacific and beyond — is just getting started.
Scientists expect the worst effects of the current El Niño to be felt in late 2023 and next year.
At the Paris climate summit in 2015, countries agreed to keep global temperature rise ‘well below’ 2°C above pre-industrial levels, setting a target of limiting the rise in temperature to 1.5°C. to hold.
A report prepared by UN experts, due to be published this week, will assess the world’s progress towards meeting the target and inform leaders ahead of the high-risk climate summit in Dubai, which begins on November 30.
It is expected that the so-called ‘global balance sheet’ will show that countries are lagging far behind in meeting their obligations.
“Rising temperatures require more action. Leaders must now step up the pressure for climate solutions,” said Guterres.
The Copernicus findings stem from computer-generated analysis using billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations around the world. Proxy data such as tree rings and ice cores allow scientists to compare modern temperatures to numbers before measurements began in the mid-1800s.
Source: DN
