The weather is still extremely hot even though summer is ending in the Northern Hemisphere. New information reveals that last month was extremely hot, marking the fourth month in a row with record-breaking heat. This suggests that 2023 is on course to become the hottest year ever recorded.
September broke the previous record set in 2020 by a huge 0. 5 degrees Celsius, according to information shared on Wednesday by the European Union‘s Copernicus Climate Change Service. This is the hottest month ever recorded, starting from 1940.
“The temperatures in September were very high, which is unusual for this time of year. Samantha Burgess, deputy director of Copernicus, said that these temperatures broke previous records by a large amount. This happened after a summer that also had record-breaking temperatures. ”
September felt unusually hot, more like a summer month in July. The average global air temperature was 16. 38 degrees Celsius (61. 45 Fahrenheit), which is 0. 93 degrees Celsius hotter than the average from 1991 to 2020. Compared to the September average before we started using a lot of fossil fuels, it was 1. 75 degrees Celsius hotter.
That is much higher than the temperature limit of 1. 5 degrees Celsius that countries want to keep global warming below according to the Paris Climate Agreement. The agreement mainly talks about average temperatures over a long period of time. However, the abnormal heat in September, after the record-breaking hottest summer, shows us a glimpse of what we can expect in terms of extreme weather as temperatures continue to rise.
In September, there were terrible floods in Libya, Greece, Bulgaria, and Turkey. These floods caused the deaths of thousands of people in Libya and dozens in the other countries. Canada had a very bad wildfire season, South America had extremely hot weather that caused fires, and New York had a lot of rain.
The temperatures of the ocean were very high in September and were considered abnormal. The temperature of the ocean reached 20. 92 degrees Celsius (69. 66 Fahrenheit) in September, which is the highest ever recorded for that month. It is also the second-highest temperature ever recorded, after August of this year. Antarctic sea ice has reached the lowest levels ever recorded for this time of year.
“This month was absolutely crazy,” said Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist, on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday.
Even though it’s October, it is still very hot. According to a climate expert named Maximiliano Herrera, European countries like Spain, Poland, Austria, and France have recently experienced the highest temperatures ever recorded in the month of October.
What happened in Europe during the first three days of October was one of the most extreme climate events in European history. Herrera posted this on Tuesday.
It seems very likely that this year will be the hottest year ever. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says there is a very high possibility, 93% or more, of reaching this milestone.
September was extremely hot, which has made 2023 likely to become the warmest year ever recorded. It is predicted to be around 1. 4 degrees Celsius hotter than the average temperature before industrialization.
The hot weather is partly caused by El Niño, which is a natural climate pattern that starts in the Pacific Ocean and makes it warmer. But underneath that pattern is the long-lasting trend of climate change caused by humans.
The temperature keeps getting hotter because we are still using fossil fuels. “It’s really easy,” said Friederike Otto, a climate science teacher at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment in the UK.
“The big difference in how much heat records are being broken is important,” she explained to CNN. People and the natural environments they live in are experiencing loss of life.
Countries from around the world will meet in Dubai for the United Nations COP28 climate summit in December. During this event, they will come together to review the progress made towards reaching climate goals. A recent report says that the world is not doing well right now.
Otto said that the big difference by which the September record was broken should alert policymakers and negotiators for COP28. He emphasized that we must all agree to gradually stop using fossil fuels.
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