This year is 'almost certainly' the warmest in 125,000 years

October was recorded as breaking the temperature record since 2019, by a large margin, according to the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).

“The record has been broken by 0.4 degrees Celsius, which is a huge difference,” said Samantha Burgess, deputy director of C3S, who described the October temperature anomaly as “extreme”.

European League 2023 is almost certainly the hottest year in 125,000 years image 1 — Heat wave on the outskirts of Jacobabad, Pakistan on May 16, 2022. Photo: Reuters

The heatwave is the result of continued greenhouse gas emissions from human activity, combined with the emergence of the El Nino weather phenomenon this year, which warmed surface waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean.

Globally, the average surface air temperature in October was 1.7 degrees Celsius warmer than the same month in 1850–1900, the period Copernicus defined as the pre-industrial era.

The record-breaking October means 2023 is now “almost certain” to be the warmest year on record, C3S said in a statement. The previous record was 2016.

Copernicus's data set goes back to 1940. "We can say that this is the warmest year in the last 125,000 years," Burgess said.

Longer-term data from the United Nations climate science panel IPCC includes figures from sources such as ice cores, tree rings and coral sediments.

“Most El Nino years are now record-breaking, because the additional global warming from El Nino adds to the steady rate of human-caused warming,” said Michael Mann, a climate scientist at the University of Pennsylvania.

Climate change is driving extreme weather events. This year, floods killed thousands in Libya, a severe heat wave in South America and Canada’s worst wildfire season on record.

“We must not let this year’s devastating floods, bushfires, storms and heatwaves become the new normal,” said Piers Forster, a climate scientist at the University of Leeds.

“By rapidly reducing greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade, we can halve the rate of warming,” he added.

Despite countries setting increasingly ambitious targets to gradually cut emissions, that has not happened so far. Global CO2 emissions are set to hit a record high in 2022.

Mai Anh (according to Reuters)

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