This Year Was The Hottest in 125,000 Years, EU Scientists Say
Scientists from the European Union have said that 2023 was the hottest year on record in the world in 125,000 years. This is stated in a report by the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) published on Wednesday.
Last month broke the previous October temperature record of 2019 by a huge margin, scientists said.
"The record was broken by 0.4 degrees Celsius, which is a huge margin," said C3S deputy director Samantha Burgess, who described the October temperature anomaly as "very extreme."
The heatwave is the result of continued greenhouse gas emissions from human activity, combined with the emergence of El Niño weather this year, which is heating surface waters in the eastern Pacific.
Globally, the average surface temperature in October was 1.7 degrees Celsius higher than in the same month in 1850-1900, which Copernicus defines as the pre-industrial period.
The record-breaking October means that 2023 is now "certain" to be the warmest year on record, C3S said in a statement.
The EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service database goes back to 1940.
"When we combine our data with the IPCC, we can say that this is the warmest year in 125,000 years," Burgess said.
Long-term data from the UN's expert panel on climate research, the IPCC, includes data from sources such as ice cores, tree rings and coral sediments.
Climate change is fuelling increasingly destructive extremes. This year, that included floods that killed thousands in Libya, extreme heat in South America and the worst wildfire season on record in Canada and Greece.
"We must not allow the devastating floods, wildfires, storms and heat waves we have seen this year to become the new normal," said Piers Forster, a climate scientist at the University of Leeds.
"By cutting greenhouse gas emissions rapidly over the next decade, we can halve the rate of warming," he added.
Despite countries setting increasingly ambitious targets for gradual emissions reductions, this has not happened yet. Global CO2 emissions hit a record high in 2022.
Following the powerful summer climate disasters, in early November, Storm Ciaran devastated Europe and caused floods, wildfires and casualties in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, France and Italy.
Overall, climate change costs the global economy €136 billion a year.
