Global Warning: 2023 Will Be The Hottest Year On Record

A Defining Moment for Climate Action

Ricky Lanusse

·

Follow

Published in

The New Climate.

·

9 min read

·

5 hours ago

• -

The warmest September ever observed by a large margin (Source: Berkley Earth)

After a cooler start to 2023, four months have seen unprecedented global temperatures, with September being the hottest month ever recorded. But sweltering temperatures baking the globe on land and sea have been piling up month after month, year after year. September was in fact the 6th straight month with record global ocean temperatures, and the 49th straight September with temperatures higher than the 20th-century average; oh, and the 535th consecutive month with warmer-than-average temperatures.

This meteorological evolution saw the likelihood of 2023 becoming the warmest year on record jump from 46.8% at the end of July to a 99% “virtually certain” probability by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) standards.

But this isn’t just another apocalyptic prediction. It’s a stark reality, proven by empirical data. And one that demands our immediate action.

New Record Becomes Clear Against Not-So-Grim Earlier Predictions

In a year that began with uncharacteristic coolness, projections from renowned authorities such as NASA’s Dr. Gavin Schmidt, the UK Met Office, Berkeley Earth, and Carbon Brief suggested that 2023 could only be one of the top ten warmest years on record. And the early months of 2023 witnessed temperatures subdued by an unusually persistent triple-dip La Niña event, causing global temperatures to remain lower from late 2020 through the onset of this year.

But starting in March, conditions in the tropical Pacific began to transition rapidly into what is shaping up to be a strong El Niño event, even though global temperatures tend to respond around three months after peak El Niño conditions. Since then, a pattern of monthly temperature records has become the trend. And after the past two months, it has become unambiguously clear that 2023 will be the hottest year on record.

We can see just how anomalous the past few months have been in the heat map below, which shows daily temperature anomalies for every day since the record began in 1958 (Source: The Climate Brink)

Because September was the warmest month ever recorded in the 174 years of NOAA’s instrument records. With a…