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As a year of surprising global warmth came to a close, a record high annual average temperature was already assured. Now, some scientists are already speculating: 2024 could be even hotter.
In the hottest year on record, the fingerprints of a changing climate in a warming world were all over dozens of extreme weather events. There wouldn’t be weather without heat; heat is energy, and weather is an expression of that energy, of an atmosphere trying to balance itself. But too much heat in the system raises the limits of what is possible in weather and pushes it toward the extremes.
Vast swaths of Earth’s oceans were record-warm for most of 2023, and it would take as many months for them to release that heat. An intense episode of the planet-warming El Niño climate pattern is nearing its peak, and the last time that happened, it pushed the planet to record warmth in 2016. This suggests there will be no imminent slowdown in a surge of global warmth that has supercharged the decades-long trend tied to fossil fuel emissions.
The planet came closer than ever to pushing average planetary temperatures more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial, 19th-century levels, according to Britain’s Met Office. It could be enough to, for the first time on an annual basis, push average planetary temperatures more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial, 19th-century levels, according to Britain’s Met Office. This provides a first glimpse of a world where sustained levels of that heat would fuel new weather extremes.
This year’s record heat was a “through line” in many of 2023’s most brutal weather events. Kristina Dahl, a climate scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, noted that “climate change influences our weather on Earth every day.” She also emphasized that in her mind, the burden of proof now is to show that climate change hasn’t influenced an event, because it’s clearly influencing everything around us.
Its a moment scientists have warned about for months: Earth has just ended its warmest year since people began keeping records, and scientists say it may have been the warmest in 125,000 years. Even though the December data isn’t yet official, the results were already “locked in” by mid-December, with six consecutive months of extremely warm temperatures making it virtually impossible for December to be cold enough to alter the final results.
Robert Rohde of Berkeley Earth commented, “We are already beyond the point that any normal process would be able to keep 2023 from being the hottest year.”
As the world grapples with the impacts of climate change on extreme weather events, the alarming trend in global temperatures sets the stage for ongoing conversations about the need for urgent and coordinated action to mitigate the effects of a rapidly warming planet.
The surge in global warmth, fueled by decades of fossil fuel emissions, has brought into sharp focus the urgent need for proactive measures to address the escalating impacts of climate change. As scientists speculate about the likelihood of 2024 being even hotter than 2023, it becomes increasingly evident that effective strategies to combat climate change are imperative for the well-being of the planet and future generations.
