UN: It’s official: July 2023 was the warmest on record

In a recent announcement from the UN weather agency, WMO, and its partners, July 2023 has been declared the hottest month on record, potentially the warmest in over 120,000 years. Samantha Burgess, Deputy Director at the European Commission’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, confirmed that July 2023’s global average temperature surpassed any previous records for any month. The month’s temperature was approximately 1.5C warmer than the pre-industrial times average from 1815 to 1900.

Regions worldwide experienced unprecedented heatwaves throughout July. Proxy records, data analyses utilizing cave deposits, calcifying organisms, and other natural markers, indicate that temperatures have not reached this level for at least 120,000 years. Additionally, global sea surface temperatures broke previous records, rising 0.51C above the 1991-2020 average, following notably high temperatures in April.

The UN World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) Director of Climate Services, Chris Hewitt, recollected the WMO’s forecast from May, which predicted a 98% likelihood that one of the upcoming five years would rank among the warmest ever recorded. Hewitt further commented that there’s a 66% probability that temperatures will surpass the 1.5C threshold above pre-industrial levels in the near future, even if it’s a “temporary” shift.

However, such temperature spikes can lead to “dire consequences” for both people and the planet, with increased exposure to extreme weather events, cautioned Burgess. She emphasized the urgency of ambitious efforts to curb global greenhouse gas emissions, which stand as the primary culprits behind these alarming records.

The WMO also highlighted the period from 2015 to 2022 as the “eight warmest years” in the last 170 years. This is particularly noteworthy given the La Niña conditions in the Pacific Ocean, which generally temper global temperatures. Driving the long-term warming trend are escalating concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, with all hitting observed peak levels. The hottest year so far, 2016, was connected to a robust El Niño event in addition to the ongoing climatic warming, Hewitt elaborated.