Dana Malcolm
Staff Writer
This year, 2023, will be the hottest on record topping decades of climate records according to a new report from a climate agency
In a September report the Copernicus Climate Change Service says we’re marching determinedly towards boiling with ‘unprecedented temperature anomalies’.
A chart in the report shows the surface temperature of the earth over decades, the vast majority (from 1950 to the 1990s) are a sweet cool blue well below the 0.0 C° mark but as the chart enters the 2000s? That line flips into a blistering red and keeps climbing higher, towards more unsustainable heat records.
The report highlights record after record, smashed. Included in the long list were the following:
• September 2023 was the warmest September on record globally, “.93°C above the 1991-2020.
• The month as a whole was around 1.75°C warmer than the September average for 1850-1900.
• The global temperature for January-September 2023 was 0.52°C higher than average, and 0.05°C higher than the equivalent period in the warmest calendar year (2016).
• For January to September 2023, the global mean temperature for 2023 to date is 1.40°C higher than the pre industrial average (1850-1900).
The pre industrial average is significant because it was the Industrial Revolution and corresponding increase in fossil fuel use that contributed to the fast tracked heating of the earth.
“The unprecedented temperatures for the time of year observed in September – following a record summer – have broken records by an extraordinary amount. This extreme month has pushed 2023 into the dubious honourof first place – on track to be the warmest year and around 1.4°C above pre industrial average temperatures. Two months out from COP28 – the sense of urgency for ambitious climate action has never been more critical,” said Smantha Burgess, Deputy Director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).
Scheduled for November 2023, the global climate conference will once again attempt to get large emitters to slow down the actions contributing to the earth’s degradation and pay their fair share to help the worst affected countries recover.
