October was the fifth month in a row to set a new hottest record in 2023
A shirtless man stands on the pier on an unseasonably hot day in Herne Bay, Britain, October 8, 2023. Kevin Coombes/Reuters
October this year was the hottest month on record globally, 1.7°C (3.1°F) warmer than the pre-industrial average for the month – the fifth month in a row it has hit such a mark in what It is now almost certainly the warmest year on record.
October was 0.4°C (0.7°F) warmer than the previous record for the month in 2019, which surprised even Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, the European climate agency that routinely publishes monthly bulletins monitoring the air. Universal surfactant. and sea temperatures, among other data.
“The amount by which we break records is shocking,” Burgess said.
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After a cumulative rise in temperatures over the past few months, 2023 will almost certainly be the hottest year on record, according to Copernicus.
Scientists monitor climate variables to understand how our planet is evolving as a result of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. A warmer planet means more extreme and severe weather events such as severe droughts or hurricanes that trap more water, said Peter Schlosser, vice president and vice dean of the Global Futures Lab at Arizona State University. He is not involved with Copernicus.
“This is a clear sign that we are entering a climate regime that will have a greater impact on a greater number of people,” Schlosser said. “We’d better take that warning we should have taken 50 or more years ago and draw the right conclusions.”
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This year has been exceptionally hot, partly because the oceans are warming, which means they are doing less to combat global warming than in the past. Historically, the oceans have absorbed up to 90% of the excess heat caused by climate change, Burgess said. She added that in the midst of the El Niño phenomenon, a natural climate cycle that temporarily warms parts of the ocean and leads to weather changes around the world, further warming can be expected in the coming months.
This means the world should expect to break more records as a result of this warming, but the question is whether this will be achieved in smaller steps in the future, Schlosser said. He added that the planet is already exceeding the 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming since pre-industrial times that the Paris Agreement was intended to limit, and that the planet has not yet seen the full impact of this warming. Now, he, Burgess and other scientists say, the need to act — to stop global-warming emissions — is urgent.
“It is much more expensive to continue burning these fossil fuels than to stop doing so,” said Frederik Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College London. “That’s basically what it shows.” “Of course, you don’t see that when you only look at the records that are broken, and not at the people and systems that are suffering, but that is what matters.”
AP Science Writer Seth Bornstein contributed to this report from Washington.
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A shirtless man stands on the pier on an unseasonably hot day in Herne Bay, Britain, October 8, 2023. Kevin Coombes/Reuters
