On November 17, the global average temperature was over 2 degrees Celsius higher than the levels recorded before industrialization, according to preliminary data shared on X by Samantha Burgess, Deputy Director of the European Copernicus Climate Change Service, as reported by News.ro citing CNN.

The threshold was only temporarily exceeded, and it does not mean that the world is in a permanent state of over 2 degrees of warming. However, it is a symptom of the planet becoming increasingly hotter and heading towards a longer-term situation where the impact of the climate crisis will be difficult—in some cases, impossible—to reverse.

"Our best estimate is that this was the first day when the global temperature was more than 2 °C above the 1850-1900 levels (or the pre-industrial levels), at 2.06°C", she wrote.

Burgess mentioned in her post that global temperatures on November 17 averaged 1.17 degrees higher than the levels from 1991-2020, making it the hottest day of November ever recorded. Compared to the pre-industrial period, before humans began burning fossil fuels on a large scale and modifying the Earth's natural climate, the temperature was 2.06 degrees higher.

The surpassing of 2 degrees on November 17 took place two weeks ahead of the UN Climate Conference, COP28, in Dubai. During this event, countries will evaluate advancements in their commitment outlined in the Paris Climate Agreement, aiming to restrict global warming to 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels, with an ambition to limit it to 1.5 degrees.

A day above 2 degrees of warming "does not mean that the Paris Agreement has been compromised", Burgess said to CNN, "but it highlights how we are approaching these internationally agreed limits. We can expect to see an increasing frequency of days with 1.5 and 2 degrees (warmer) in the coming months and years", explained the climatologist.

Copernicus data is preliminary and will need weeks to be confirmed with real-life observations.

The world seems to be already on track to exceed 1.5 degrees of long-term warming in the coming years, a threshold beyond which scientists say humans and ecosystems will struggle to adapt.

With each fraction of a degree of warming beyond this threshold, the effects will be more severe. Warming to 2 degrees elevates the risk of deadly extreme weather events for a significantly larger population and heightens the probability of the planet reaching irreversible tipping points, such as the collapse of polar ice caps and the mass death of coral reefs.

The data comes after the hottest 12 months ever recorded and a year of extreme weather events, exacerbated by the climate crisis, including wildfires in Hawaii, floods in North Africa and storms in the Mediterranean that have claimed lives.

Scientists are increasingly concerned that temperature data is surpassing their predictions.

In the past few weeks, a set of reports assessing the state of the Earth's climate and human efforts to address it indicate that the planet is moving towards a dangerous level of warming and is not doing enough to mitigate or adapt to its impact.

A UN report last week found that even if countries implement all current climate commitments, the pollution that warms the planet will be 9% higher in 2030 than in 2010.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world needs to reduce emissions by 45% by the end of this decade, compared to 2010, to have any hope of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

A 9% increase means that this goal is far from being achieved.