2023 hottest year on record

Last year was the hottest on record, with global temperature close to the 1.5°C limit, according to Copernicus. It said unprecedented global temperatures from June onwards led 2023 to become the warmest year on record (going back to 1850), overtaking 2016, the previous warmest year, by a large margin. Copernicus noted that 2023 saw record-breaking conditions such as the hottest month on record and daily global temperature averages briefly surpassing pre-industrial levels by more than 2°C. Last year had a global average temperature of 14.98°C, 0.17°C higher than the previous highest annual value in 2016, and was 0.60°C warmer than the 1991-2020 average and 1.48°C warmer than the 1850-1900 pre-industrial level. “It is likely that a 12-month period ending in January or February 2024 will exceed 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level,” said Copernicus. “2023 marks the first time on record that every day within a year has exceeded 1°C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial level. Close to 50% of days were more than 1.5°C warmer than the 1850-1900 level, and two days in November were, for the first time, more than 2°C warmer.” Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, said: “The extremes we have observed over the last few months provide a dramatic testimony of how far we now are from the climate in which our civilisation developed. This has profound consequences for the Paris Agreement and all human endeavours. If we want to successfully manage our climate risk portfolio, we need to urgently decarbonise our economy while using climate data and knowledge to prepare for the future.” Climate records were broken throughout the year, said Copernicus: Annual average air temperatures were the warmest on record, or close to the warmest, over sizeable parts of all ocean basins and all continents except Australia. Each month from June to December in 2023 was warmer than the corresponding month in any previous year. July and August 2023 were the warmest two months on record. Boreal summer (June-August) was also the warmest season on record. December 2023 was the warmest December on record globally, with an average temperature of 13.51°C, 0.85°C above the 1991-2020 average and 1.78°C above the 1850-1900 level for the month. Greenhouse gas concentrations in 2023 reached the highest levels ever recorded in the atmosphere according to C3S and the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS). Global average sea surface temperatures (SSTs) remained persistently and unusually high, reaching record levels for the time of year from April through December, said Copernicus, noting that 2023 saw a transition to El Niño. However, the transition to El Niño alone does not explain all of the increase in ocean surface temperatures at a global scale in 2023, as high SSTs outside of the equatorial Pacific contributed significantly to the record-breaking global SSTs. “The unprecedented SSTs were associated with marine heatwaves around the globe, including in parts of the Mediterranean, Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, Indian Ocean and North Pacific, and much of the North Atlantic,” it said. Looking at Europe, Copernicus revealed that 2023 was the second-warmest year for Europe, at 1.02°C above the 1991-2020 average, 0.17°C cooler than 2020, the warmest year on record. Temperatures in Europe were above average for 11 months during 2023 and September was the warmest September on record. Last winter in Europe (December 2022-February 2023) was the second-warmest winter on record. The European summer (June-August) was the fifth-warmest on record. A large number of extreme events were recorded across the globe, including heatwaves, floods, droughts and wildfires. According to Copernicus, estimated global wildfire carbon emissions in 2023 increased by 30% with respect to 2022, driven largely by persistent wildfires in Canada.

2023 hottest year on record

Copernicus says global temperature close to the 1.5°C limit

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