World Meteorological Organization report: 2023 “broke” world climate records | environment

The year 2023 was marked by a fact Breaking climate records at the global levelwhich has had enormous social and economic impacts in all regions of the world, Which particularly affects the most vulnerable population groupsconcludes a new study conducted by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) published on Tuesday (19).

According to the report”The state of the climate in 2023“, The world has never seen a situation with so much extremism and record:

“We have never come close to the 1.5°C threshold of the Paris Agreement on climate change,” said Celeste Saulo, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization.

Next, you need to understand the context behind each aspect of the climate crisis and their challenging perspectives.

Global warming is caused by greenhouse gases that trap heat from our sun in the atmosphere. These gases such as Carbon Dioxide (carbon dioxide), is released when we burn fossil fuels, such as coal and oil, something we did not do before the Industrial Revolution, at least on a large scale.

Since then, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by more than 50% – and is continuing to increase. As a result, global warming makes our planet hotter, which in turn causes a series of problems and increases the severity of natural phenomena, such as fires, droughts and storms, which we are seeing more and more around the world.

According to the World Meteorological Organization report, observed concentrations of the three main greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide – will reach record levels in 2022. Real-time data from specific locations also shows a continued increase through 2023.

Hottest day and month on record

In 2023, the average global temperature was 1.45°C (with an uncertainty of ±0.12°C) above the pre-industrial average. This made last year the hottest year on record, surpassing previous records set in 2016 and 2020.

As a result, the decadal average for 2014-2023 was 1.20°C (with an uncertainty of ±0.12°C) above the 1850-1900 average. This means that the continuing increase in greenhouse gas concentrations is the main driver of global warming, according to the World Meteorological Organization report.

Average ocean surface temperatures have also broken records since last year, and the World Meteorological Organization predicts that this warming is likely to continue — an irreversible change on the scale of hundreds to thousands of years.

In the study, the organization highlights that the global ocean has witnessed a Average daily coverage of marine heat waves is 32%.This is much higher than the previous record of 23% set in 2016.

This increase in the coverage and intensity of marine heat waves has been observed over large areas, such as the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea, a phenomenon accompanied by an increase in ocean acidity due specifically to the absorption of carbon dioxide.

Another worrying factor in today's global climate is rising sea levels.

According to the World Meteorological Organization, in 2023, global average sea level will reach sea level. Historical peak in satellite recording (since 1993)Which indicates the continued warming of the oceans (thermal expansion). Melting glaciers and ice caps.

As a result, the rate of rise in global mean sea level in the last ten years (2014-2023) is more than double the rate recorded in the first decade of satellite recordings (1993-2002).

Ice caps in Antarctica and the Arctic

One of the most prominent items mentioned in the World Meteorological Organization report is the sea ice cover in Antarctica.

According to study data, the extent of Antarctic sea ice has reached a level Absolute historical low of the satellite era (since 1979) in February 2023 and remained at record levels for this time of year from June until early November last year.

The annual maximum in September was 16.96 million square kilometers, about 1.5 million square kilometers below the 1991-2020 average and 1 million square kilometers below the previous lowest maximum.

Furthermore, Arctic sea ice extent remained well below normal, with the annual maximum and minimum sea ice extent being the fifth and sixth lowest on record, respectively.