High heat, low ice and fossil fuels: The climate records that tumbled in 2023

Key PointsThe European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service confirmed 2023 was the hottest year on record.The year featured a string of record-breaking climate statistics and weather events.Others included the hottest European summer, the lowest Antarctic sea ice and unprecedented fossil fuel emissions.

Scientists have confirmed that 2023 was the hottest year on record.

The official declaration, made by the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), came just days into Australia’s summer and capped off a torrid 12 months in which climate records were consistently toppled.

Here are just a few.

Ocean surface temperatures reached record highs

Global

remained at record-high levels for the time of year throughout April, May and June 2023, according to C3S data. Those temperatures continued to rise until 31 July, when they reached 20.96C. This marked the highest value on record, according to C3S, slightly exceeding the previous record of 20.95C, which was recorded in March 2016.

Experts linked the year’s unprecedented sea surface temperatures to periods of unusually high ocean temperatures that are known as marine heatwaves. These can have significant and sometimes devastating impacts on ocean ecosystems and biodiversity.

Antarctic sea ice extent dropped to record lows

Researchers at NASA and the US-based National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) found that

reached its lowest maximum extent on record on 10 September, shrinking to 16.96 million square kilometres. This surpassed the previous record, from 1986, by 1.03 million square kilometres – roughly the size of Texas and California combined.

The record low was also observed during Antarctica’s darkest and coldest months, when the ice cover should have been growing at a much faster pace.

Research indicates that higher ocean temperatures played an important role in the problem, slowing ice growth during the cold seasons and enhancing melting during the warm seasons, while scientists flagged

and wind patterns as possible contributors.

Hottest July ever recorded was this year

Amid staggering European and North American heatwaves and wildfires, July’s global average temperatures

, and likely for at least 120,000 years. This followed on from the hottest June on record, and similarly preceded the hottest ever recorded August, September, October and November.

“For the entire planet, it is a disaster. And for scientists, it is unequivocal – humans are to blame,”

said on 27 July, as it became clear the month’s temperatures were going to shatter previous records.

“All this is entirely consistent with predictions and repeated warnings. The only surprise is the speed of the change. Climate change is here, it is terrifying, and it is just the beginning. The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived.”

Europe recorded its hottest summer ever

Earth recorded its hottest European summer on record in 2023

The northern hemisphere summer for 2023 was the warmest on record globally by a significant margin, with average temperatures soaring to 16.77C – exceeding the average by 0.66C. The European-average summer temperature was 19.63C – exceeding the average by 0.83C. It was the fifth-warmest average temperature for the European summer season.

Extreme weather disasters such as wildfires, heatwaves and droughts in 2023 killed more than 18,000 people, displaced at least 150,000 more, and caused billions of dollars worth of damage.

“Global temperature records continue to tumble in 2023, with the warmest August following on from the warmest July and June leading to the warmest boreal (northern hemisphere) summer in our data record going back to 1940,” Samantha Burgess, Deputy Director of C3S, said in September. “The scientific evidence is overwhelming – we will continue to see more climate records and more intense and frequent extreme weather events impacting society and ecosystems, until we stop emitting greenhouse gases.”

Fossil fuel emissions reached new highs

rose to record levels in 2023, according to new research from the Global Carbon Project science team, with forecasts predicting total annual fossil carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of 36.8 billion tonnes – a 1.1 per cent increase from 2022.

Despite CO2 emissions falling in some regions, including in Europe and the United States, researchers found that they increased globally.

The research team also estimated that, at the current emissions level, there is a 50 per cent chance global warming will exceed 1.5C – the internationally agreed-upon benchmark to prevent worsening and potentially irreversible effects of climate change – in about seven years.

“The impacts of climate change are evident all around us, but action to reduce carbon emissions from fossil fuels remains painfully slow,” said Professor Pierre Friedlingstein, of the Global Systems Institute at the University of Exeter in the UK, who led the study.

“It now looks inevitable we will overshoot the 1.5C target of the Paris Agreement, and leaders meeting at COP28 will have to agree rapid cuts in fossil fuel emissions even to keep the 2C target alive.”

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