The world is on track to experience its hottest year on record in 2023, with September 2023 being the warmest September on record, according to a report by the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).
The report found that the global temperature for January-September 2023 was 0.52 degrees Celsius (0.9 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than average, and 0.05 degrees Celsius warmer than the first nine months of the warmest calendar year, 2016.
The global mean temperature so far this year is 1.40 degrees Celsius higher than the preindustrial average between 1850 and 1900.
C3S Deputy Director Samantha Burgess said the report’s findings should be a wake-up call for the world to take urgent action on climate change.
“The sense of urgency for ambitious climate action has never been more critical,” she said.
Scientists say climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels is making extreme weather such as heat waves and storms more intense and frequent.
The C3S report found that September 2023 was the warmest September on record, with average surface air temperature reaching 16.38 degrees Celsius, which is 0.93 degrees Celsius above the monthly average during 1991-2020.
It is also 0.5 degrees Celsius warmer than the previous warmest September to date, in 2020.
The report also found that Europe experienced both hotter and wetter-than-average conditions in September 2023.
In addition to Europe, the Latin American countries of Brazil and Chile also experienced extreme precipitation events in their southern regions.
Source: PhilNews24 | October 5, 2023
