‘Climate Crisis: Record-breaking Global Warming in 2023’

According to the latest statistics from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), 2023 was not only the hottest year on record, but also other signs of global warming, including rising sea levels, ocean heating, loss of Antarctic sea ice, and receding glaciers. Many important indicators also broke records. Part of the Global Climate Report.

“We have never been this close to reaching the 1.5°C lower limit of the Paris Climate Agreement, even if it is temporary at the moment,” WMO Secretary-General Celeste Sauro said in a press release. “The WMO community is sounding an emergency alert to the world.”

A range of glaciers around the world, which are monitored to show what's happening to all glaciers, have seen the biggest ice loss since records began in 1950, according to preliminary data. The most extreme melting was in Europe and western North America.

Since satellite monitoring began in 1993, the rate of sea level rise has more than doubled. The global average sea level rise rate from 2014 to 2023 was more than twice the rate from 1993 to 2002.

This is due not only to the melting of glaciers and ice sheets, but also to the thermal expansion of the oceans as temperatures rise. The ocean-wide heat content will reach a new high in 2023, and the rate of warming has increased over the past two decades.

On average, on any given day in 2023, almost a third of the world's oceans were affected by a marine heatwave. More than 90% experienced heat wave conditions throughout the year.

At the end of 2023, an extreme marine heatwave occurred across the North Atlantic, with water temperatures 3 degrees Celsius above average. Recent studies show that ocean heatwaves are causing major changes in ecosystems, and thousands of whales may have starved to death.

Antarctic sea ice extent is the lowest on record, with the southern hemisphere's maximum area at the end of winter being 1 million square kilometers below the previous record minimum. Its area is larger than France and Germany combined.

Heat waves, floods, droughts, wildfires and tropical cyclones, exacerbated by global warming, have also affected millions of lives and caused economic losses amounting to billions of dollars, according to a WMO report. That's what it means.

For example, Hurricane Otis strengthened from a tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane in less than a day. According to reports, more than 50 people were killed in Mexico and up to $16 billion in damage was caused. US National Hurricane Center Report.

Overall, 2023 was the warmest year on record, with global average surface temperatures 1.45 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial baseline, the WMO report confirms.

So far, 2024 has been even hotter than 2023, with January and February setting new records, according to the EU's Copernicus climate monitoring service.