European Union scientists said yesterday that 2023 would be the warmest year on record, as global mean temperature for the first 11 months of the year hit the highest level on record, 1.46 degrees Celsius above the 1850-1900 average.
The record comes as governments are in marathon negotiations on whether to, for the first time, phase out the use of CO2-emitting coal, oil and gas, the main source of warming emissions, at the COP28 summit in Dubai.
The temperature for the January-November period was 0.13C higher than the average for the same period in 2016, currently the warmest calendar year on record, the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said.
November 2023 was the warmest November on record globally, with an average surface air temperature of 14.22C, 0.85C above the 1991-2020 average for November and 0.32C above the previous warmest November, in 2020, Copernicus added.
This year “has now had six record-breaking months and two record-breaking seasons. The extraordinary global November temperatures, including two days warmer than 2C above preindustrial, mean that 2023 is the warmest year in recorded history,” deputy director of C3S Samantha Burgess said in a statement.