The new Copernicus Global Climate Highlights 2023 Report shows record-breaking climate conditions in 2023. It also finds that it is likely that a 12-month period ending in January or February 2024 will exceed pre-industrial levels by 1.5°C.
The 2023 Global Climate Highlights report, published by the Copernicus Climate Change Service, part of the EU’s Earth Observation programme, marks 2023 as the worldwide hottest year on record, since the beginning of global data recording in 1850. With a global average temperature of 14.98 °C, 2023 surpassed the previous warmest year, 2016, by a substantial margin of 0.17 °C.
With temperatures higher than average for 11 out of 12 months of the year, 2023 marked the second-hottest year on record for Europe. The unprecedented temperatures from June onwards resulted in an average temperature 1.02 °C above the 1991-2020 average. Only in 2020 was there ever a higher average annual temperature recorded.
The report summarises the climatic extremes that were faced in 2023 as well as the main drivers that continue to accelerate climatic changes. More specifically, it looks at the El Niño phenomenon, which contributes to rising sea surface temperatures, as well as greenhouse gas emissions and other natural and anthropogenic factors.
However, rising temperatures are not the only focus of the report. The increasing number of extreme weather events has been a challenge for the civil protection community in Europe and worldwide. Over the past year, a stark number of extreme weather events occurred, including heatwaves, floods and droughts.
Not only is this increase fuelled by climate change, but, as the report points out, extreme events can also have an impact on global climate. For example, in 2023, the carbon emissions due to wildfires increased by 30% with respect to the previous year, largely due to the devastating fire season in Canada.
The extremes we have observed over the last few months provide a dramatic testimony of how far we now are from the climate in which our civilisation developed. This has profound consequences for the Paris Agreement and all human endeavours. If we want to successfully manage our climate risk portfolio, we need to urgently decarbonise our economy whilst using climate data and knowledge to prepare for the future.
More information on the Global Climate Highlights 2023 as well as the full report can be found here.
Risk drivers