Global temperatures continue to break all records this year: after an unprecedented summer and the warmest September on record, 2023 is the hottest year, during the first nine months of which the temperature approached the limit of increase by 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial times.

From January to September, “the average global temperature was 1.4 degrees Celsius higher than the average of the pre-industrial era (1850-1900),” the European Observatory’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) announced today.

This average temperature, which is already 0.05 degrees Celsius higher than the previous record year in 2016, is likely to increase even more in the last three months, given the increase in the strength of the phenomenon. El Nino. This cyclical weather phenomenon over the Pacific, synonymous with additional global warming, usually peaks around Christmas.

“It is not a given that in 2023 we will reach 1.5 degrees Celsius. But we are quite close,” said Carlo Buodebo, director of C3S.

Even if we reach this symbolic limit, it does not mean that we will not succeed in achieving the most ambitious goal of the Paris Agreement, because this refers to the evolution of the climate over long periods, in decades and not in years.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, Giec) predicts that the limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius will already be exceeded between 2030-2035.

The World Meteorological Organization had estimated in the spring that during one of the next five years this limit will be exceeded for the first time.

“Unprecedented Anomaly”

Meanwhile “September 2023 was the warmest ever recorded globally” and broke the previous record by an impressive margin, continuing the streak of global monthly records that began in June, Copernicus announced today.

July 2023 holds the absolute record for the warmest month of all months.

With the average global surface temperature reaching 16.38 degrees Celsius, last month was an “unprecedented anomaly”, surpassing the previous record set in September 2020 by 0.5 degrees Celsius.

September 2023 is “1.75 degrees Celsius warmer than the average September in the period 1850-1900”, before the human-made greenhouse effect started, the European Observatory added.

Unprecedented temperatures were observed on all continents. In Europe in September 2023, a new temperature record was set for the continent, while in France the thermometer showed 35 degrees Celsius until the beginning of October.

Also in September its torrential rains storm daniel, possibly exacerbated by climate change according to preliminary investigations, caused widespread damage in Greece and Libya, where thousands of people lost their lives.

Torrential rains hit southern Brazil and Chile in September, while the Brazilian Amazon state is currently suffering from extreme drought, affecting more than 500,000 people.

Alongside the two poles are losing much of their ice: the extent of ice in Antarctica is at its lowest point since the previous negative record in 1979. Correspondingly in the Arctic the extent of ice is 18% below average, according to C3S.

The warming of the seas, which absorb 90% of the extra heat caused by human activity, plays an important role in these observations.

According to Copernicus, the average sea temperature reached 20.92 degrees Celsius in September, a new monthly record and the second highest since August 2023.