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friederike otto
EU Scientists 'Can Say With Near Certainty' That 2023 Will Be Hottest in 125,000 Years
Noting the global temperature records "obliterated" thoughout the year, one expert said that "the sense of urgency for ambitious climate action going into COP28 has never been higher."
Nov 08, 2023
European Union scientists said Wednesday that this year is "virtually certain" to be the warmest on record globally, bolstering demands for bolder action to tackle the climate emergency amid preparations for a United Nations summit later this month.
The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) found that last month was the hottest October ever documented, with an average surface air temperature of 15.3°C—0.85°C higher than the 1991-2020 average and 0.40°C above the previous record from 2019.
October also set a new record for average sea surface temperature and "marked the sixth consecutive month that Antarctic sea ice extent remained at record low levels for the time of year," C3S revealed. "Arctic sea ice extent reached its seventh lowest value for October, at 12% below average."
C3S director Carlo Buontempo told Bloomberg Green that "the difference between the temperature of this October and the average temperature of October in the last 30 years is extraordinarily large, much larger than the anomaly of any of the other years that were record-breaking."
"We are already in uncharted territory," he warned. "We are already experiencing a climate that we have never seen in our life or in our history."
C3S deputy director Samantha Burgess
noted in a statement that the "exceptional temperature anomalies" of last month follow "four months of global temperature records being obliterated."
This year featured a historically hot summer and a September that Buontempo previously described as "just mind-blowing," given that it was at the time "the most anomalous warm month of any year" in the service's data going back to 1940.
The service also found that January to October had the highest global mean temperature for that period, 0.10°C higher than the 10-month average for 2016, currently the hottest year on record.
Given that finding, Burgess explained, "we can say with near certainty that 2023 will be the warmest year on record, and is currently 1.43°C above the preindustrial average."
While C3S can only directly account for just over eight decades, when data from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is considered, "then we can say that this is the warmest year for the last 125,000 years," she told Reuters.
"September really, really surprised us," Burgess continued. "So after last month, it's hard to determine whether we're in a new climate state. But now records keep tumbling and they're surprising me less than they did a month ago."
Responding to the C3S report, Imperial College London climatologist Friederike Otto stressed that "I think the most important thing to highlight here is that this is not just another record or another big number that is statistically interesting. The fact that we're seeing this record hot year means record human suffering."
"Within this year, extreme heatwaves and droughts made much worse by these extreme temperatures have caused thousands of deaths, people losing their livelihoods, being displaced, etc. These are the records that matter," Otto added. "That is why the Paris agreement is a human rights treaty, and not keeping to the goals in it is violating human rights on a vast scale."
Human activity has already heated up the planet by about 1.1°C, relative to preindustrial levels. The Paris agreement aims to keep global temperature rise this century well below 2°C, with a target of 1.5°C—goals that will be at the center of COP28, the U.N. summit that is set to kick off in Dubai, United Arab Emirates on November 30.
Burgess declared that "the sense of urgency for ambitious climate action going into COP28 has never been higher."
Despite persistent warnings from climate scientists and other experts that the world needs to rapidly phase out planet-heating fossil fuels, governments and banks continue to dump money into the polluting industry, as a report from the U.N. and global partners reiterated Wednesday.
"Governments are literally doubling down on fossil fuel production; that spells double trouble for people and planet," said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres. "We cannot address climate catastrophe without tackling its root cause: fossil fuel dependence."
"COP28 must send a clear signal that the fossil fuel age is out of gas—that its end is inevitable," he emphasized. "We need credible commitments to ramp up renewables, phase out fossil fuels, and boost energy efficiency, while ensuring a just, equitable transition."
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July Heatwaves in Europe and North America 'Virtually Impossible' Without Burning of Fossil Fuels
If rapid action isn't taken, "It could well be that this is what will be a cool summer in the future," one scientist said.
Jul 25, 2023
The climate crisis—driven by the burning of fossil fuels—has significantly increased the likelihood of the dangerous heatwaves that baked three different continents this July.
Without climate change, the heatwave that broke records in China would have been a one-in-250 year event and the temperatures measured in Mexico and the U.S. and in Southern Europe would have been "virtually impossible," World Weather Attribution (WWA) concluded in a report released Tuesday.
"Unless the world rapidly stops burning fossil fuels, these events will become even more common and the world will experience heatwaves that are even hotter and longer-lasting," the report authors warned.
"The world hasn't stopped burning fossil fuels, the climate continues to warm and heatwaves continue to become more extreme. It is that simple."
The study authors looked at three regional periods of high heat this month:
- The U.S. Southwest and Mexico from July 1-18.
- Southern Europe from July 12-18.
- China from July 5-18.
During this period, Death Valley, California, recorded a temperature of 53.3°C, as Carbon Brief reported, and Phoenix, Arizona, sweltered through at least 110°F highs for a record 20 days in a row.
Southern Europe, meanwhile, endured the back-to-back Cerberus and Charon heatwaves that brought temperatures above 40°C to areas in Spain, Greence, Bosnia, France, and Italy, where Rome broke its high temperature record to reach 41.8°C July 18.
Two days earlier, China recorded its highest temperature ever at 52.2°C in the township of Sanbao. Beijing also broke its record for the number of days above 35°C in a year, with July 18 marking the 27th.
All of this heat took a toll on human health, with several deaths reported in the U.S. and more than 200 in Mexico, WWA said. Heat also killed people in China, Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Spain, and Algeria and sent many more to the hospital.
And the cause of all this is clear, according to the scientists of the WWA initiative. They used peer-reviewed methods to assess how global heating from the burning of oil, gas, and coal influenced the chance and severity of these extremes. They found that the heatwave in China was made at least 50 times more likely by the postindustrial temperature rise and that the others were made at least 1,000 times more likely but most probably would not have occurred at all.
What's more, without climate change, all three heatwaves would have been significantly less hot: The climate crisis made the European heatwave 2.5°C warmer in Southern Europe, the North American heatwave 2°C warmer, and the Chinese heatwave around 1°C warmer.
While an ongoing El Niño event likely nudged temperatures up slightly in some regions, it was not the primary driver of the heat. In fact, it's "very small compared to the effect of climate change," one study author said at a press conference reported by Carbon Brief.
"The result of this attribution study is not surprising. The world hasn't stopped burning fossil fuels, the climate continues to warm and heatwaves continue to become more extreme. It is that simple," Friederike Otto, a study coauthor and senior lecturer in climate science at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at Imperial College London, said in a statement reported by CNN.
The research team emphasized the need to act, both to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to protect people from more frequent heat extremes.
"Such heatwaves are no longer rare and the most important thing is, these extremes kill people, particularly destroying the lives and livelihoods of the most vulnerable," Otto said, according to The Guardian.
In the short term, adaptations can include heat action plans and early warning systems, while longer-term strategies include changes to urban planning to cool cities or efforts to make the electric grid more resilient, Julie Arrighi from the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Center said at the press conference, as Carbon Brief reported.
"Extreme heat is deadly and rapidly on the rise," she said, according to The Guardian.
But it's also essential to stop emitting greenhouse gasses. Otto endorsed the call for an agreement to phase out fossil fuels at the upcoming COP28 UN climate conference in the United Arab Emirates. The summit has already faced controversy due to the appointment of Sultan al-Jaber—also the CEO of the UAE's state oil company—to preside over it.
If such rapid action isn't taken, "It could well be that this is what will be a cool summer in the future," Otto said, as CNN reported.
The study authors found that heatwaves as extreme as this summer's could occur every two to five years if temperatures are allowed to rise to 2°C above pre-industrial levels.
"We still have time to secure a safe and healthy future," Otto said, as The Guardian reported. "If we do not, tens of thousands of people will keep dying from heat-related causes each year."
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