“TEMPERATURE WILL KEEP RISING”
Meanwhile, 2023 has seen a series of devastating extreme weather events linked to climate change, even as the world’s carbon emissions continue to rise.
According to Copernicus, whose records go back to 1940, the first 11 months of this year have been 0.13 degrees Celsius hotter than in 2016, the previous warmest year.
Global temperatures in the second half of this year are believed to have been partly propelled by the El Nino weather pattern, which has caused fewer “anomalies” so far in 2023 than from 2015 to 2016, the Copernicus service said.
September to November, the three months marking autumn in the northern hemisphere, were the hottest ever “by a large margin”, according to Copernicus.
November alone was 1.75 degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial levels – and marked a significant 0.85 degrees Celsius increase over the 1991 to 2020 period, Copernicus said.
Such numbers could suggest that the world is coming uncomfortably close to warming 1.5 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times, which is a key threshold in the Paris climate agreement.
However, to actually breach the Paris limit, global temperatures would need to stay above 1.5 degrees Celsius over decades.
“As long as greenhouse gas concentrations keep rising we can’t expect different outcomes,” Copernicus head Carlo Buontempo said.
“The temperature will keep rising and so will the impacts of heatwaves and droughts,” he added.
Also on Wednesday, researchers warned of 26 Earth “tipping points” such as melting ice sheets, that have the potential to unleash a domino effect of irreversible catastrophes across the planet.
Source: CNA
