How Has It Been Estimated that 2023 id the Warmest over the Last 125 000 Years?
This year will "almost certainly" be the warmest in 125,000 years, reported Reuters, quoting scientists from the European Union (EU). They came up to this conclusion after data had showed that last month was the world's warmest October in that period. Last month surpassed the previous October temperature record in 2019 by a huge margin, shared the European Copernicus Climate Change Service.
"The record was beaten by 0.4 degrees Celsius, which is a huge difference," explained the deputy director of the institution Samantha Burgess. She described the October temperature anomaly as "very extreme". The warm weather is the result of the continuing release of greenhouse gases from human activity together with the occurrence of the natural phenomenon El Niño this year. It heats up the surface waters of the eastern Pacific Ocean.
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Globally, the average air temperature in October was 1.7 degrees Celsius - higher than the same month in 1850-1900 - a period identified by Copernicus as pre-industrial. The record month of October means 2023 is now "with almost certainty" to be the warmest year on record, the European Copernicus Climate Change Service said in a statement. The previous record was set in 2016, another year El Niño was in full swing.
Copernicus has had data since 1940. "When we combine our data with the information from Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we can say that this is the warmest month in the last 125,000 years," says Burgess. Longer-term data from the UN climate science panel include indicators from sources such as ice cores, tree rings and coral deposits.
The only other time before October when a month has set a temperature record with such a large margin is September 2023. "September really, really surprised us. So, after last month, it is hard to say if we are in a new climate state. But now the records keep falling and it surprises me less than it did a month ago," says Burgess.
"Most years with El Niño are record years because the additional global warming from El Niño is added to human-caused warming," explains Michael Mann, a climatologist at the University of Pennsylvania. Climate change is fueling increasingly destructive extreme events. This year we saw floods that killed thousands of people in Libya, severe heat in South America and the worst forest fire season in Canada, recalls Reuters. Although countries have set increasingly ambitious targets to gradually reduce harmful emissions, it has not happened so far. Globally, carbon dioxide levels hit record highs in 2022.
