Did you feel like you sweated more than usual during 2023? Well, it’s not just you, it’s because last year the Earth recorded its highest temperatures on record. And now, the measurements have been confirmed by five independent organizations.
2023 has been the hottest year ever recorded. Independent analyses from NASA, NOAA, WMO, Copernicus, and the UK Met Office have all reached the same conclusion. The year also broke other records and saw a series of severe weather events worldwide.
Each organization works with a slightly different set of data and techniques, which results in small variations between the exact figures they reach. However, all five agreed that 2023 was warmer than the previous record year, 2016, by a wide margin.
How much warmer was 2023?
NASA discovered that the global average surface temperature was 1.2 °C higher than the reference period it uses, from 1951 to 1980. NOAA calculates the average for the entire 20th century and concludes that the temperature in 2023 was 1.18 °C higher.
Copernicus, the WMO and the Meteorological Office use a pre-industrial baseline from 1850 to 1900, and find that 2023 is between 1.45 and 1.48 °C higher than that period. By regions, Africa, North and South America experienced the hottest year ever recorded, while in Europe and Asia it was the second hottest.
Other temperature records were also reached throughout the year. Every month, from June to December, set a world record, with July 2023 being the hottest month ever recorded, with the hottest day and week ever recorded, and culminating in the hottest summer ever recorded in the northern hemisphere.
For the first time, every day in 2023 was more than 1 °C warmer than the pre-industrial average, and nearly half were more than 1.5 °C warmer. Two days in November were more than 2 °C warmer than that average, a threshold that had not been crossed before.
The oceans also suffered. Between April and December, the global surface temperature of the oceans recorded historical highs every month, while Antarctic sea ice reached its smallest maximum and minimum extents in history.
The heat content in the upper part of the oceans was also the highest ever recorded, a value that is measured by the heat stored in the top 2,000 meters of the ocean. This causes the atmosphere to retain more heat and water vapor, which in turn leads to more extreme weather phenomena.
As always, the scientists involved in the studies point to man-made climate change, which is increasingly manifesting in a more alarming way. Let’s hope that the warnings don’t fall on deaf ears.
