2023-09-07 07:33:00
In the months of June, July and August, the northern summer for meteorologists, the surface temperature on Earth averaged 16.77 degrees Celsius. This was calculated by the European climate agency Copernicus on the basis of data from satellites and weather stations.
It’s not an easy number to grasp. It sounds cool, but everything is included in this average. The southern hemisphere, where it was just winter, the colder nights, the temperature at the poles. That said, it’s quite warm. This also indicates a historical comparison going back to 1940; it is a record of its kind.
One year has to be the warmest, and breaking climate records has been common in recent years. For example, 2016 and 2019 were also the warmest for a while. But the way 2023 rivals that ‘competition’ is exceptional. 2019 was regarding one thirtieth of a degree Celsius warmer than 2016. The current year is no less than three tenths on top of that. A huge outlier.
Warm sea
The high temperatures did not translate directly into a warm summer in Europe. In that ranking, 2023 has to settle for fifth place, still well above average. The heat was in the sea earlier this summer. Some measurements of outliers in the North Atlantic did break records.
According to Samantha Burgess of Copernicus, the end of all records is far from in sight. “We will continue to see climate records and an increase in extreme weather events, impacting society and ecosystems, until we stop emitting greenhouse gases,” she warns.
2023 is also likely to be the warmest year on record by the same measure of average surface temperature, Burgess says. Now that is still 2016, but the difference is one hundredth of a degree. The next four months will tell.
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