The year 2023 has been confirmed as the warmest on record.

It's official: 2023 was the hottest year on record. The average global temperature this year was 1.48 degrees Celsius higher than the pre-industrial average of 1850-1900, according to the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Agency (C3S). This is the highest since records began in 1940 and probably the highest in the last 100,000 years, causing heat waves, droughts and wildfires.

The average annual temperature was 14.98°C (58.96°F), close to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, but although this target applies to long-term averages, countries are required to do so under the 2015 Paris Agreement. Aiming to avoid. It is the temperature, not the annual average temperature.

“The extreme conditions we have observed over the past few months dramatically demonstrate how far we are now from the climate in which our civilization developed.” carlo buontemposaid the director of C3S in a statement. “We urgently need to decarbonize.”

First, daily temperatures throughout the year were at least 1°C warmer than during the same period before the industrial revolution. Richard Betts The Met Office said 2023 was even hotter than forecasters expected. This is partly due to the onset of El Niño, a natural climate step that causes temperatures to rise, earlier than usual, but most of the warming is still due to human emissions.

“Every year, the Japan Meteorological Agency makes a weather forecast for next year,” Betts says. “For the first time, 2023 significantly exceeded our forecasts.”

The sweltering temperatures led to extreme weather events like the heavy rains of Storm Daniel. Dam collapses, killing more than 11,000 people In Libya last September, much more likely. July heatwave in North America and Europe would have been 'virtually impossible' without climate change, says Global Weather Attribution Initiative mentioned in the report.

Ocean temperatures in 2023 were also unprecedented, according to C3S. Contributing to events such as Hurricane Otiswhich became more intense than any other storm in history in 12 hours.

Betts said this year's weather could be hotter, potentially setting a new record set in 2023.