{"id":515448,"date":"2024-07-17T15:30:11","date_gmt":"2024-07-17T18:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/?p=515448"},"modified":"2024-07-17T15:30:11","modified_gmt":"2024-07-17T18:30:11","slug":"2023-was-the-hottest-year-on-the-planet-since-1850","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/2023-was-the-hottest-year-on-the-planet-since-1850\/","title":{"rendered":"2023 was the hottest year on the planet since 1850"},"content":{"rendered":"

The figures that follow are unparalleled in modern human history. All 365 days of 2023 were at least 1 degree Celsius (\u00baC) warmer than the global average temperature between 1850 and 1900. Almost half of them were 1.5 \u00b0C or more above this baseline, which represents the climate of the preindustrial era. On two days \u2014 November 17 and 18 \u2014\u00a0 temperatures more than 2 \u00b0C above the late nineteenth century average were recorded for the first time (see graph<\/em><\/a>).<\/p>\n

These data, released at the beginning of January by the European climate change service Copernicus, confirm the predictions that 2023 was the hottest year on the planet since 1850. The average temperature of Earth’s atmosphere hit 14.98 \u00b0C, which is 0.17 \u00b0C above the previous record, set in 2016, and 0.6 \u00b0C above the average for the period 1991\u20132020. It was 1.48 \u00b0C warmer than the average for the period 1850\u20131900.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>

\n \n \n \n <\/picture>Alexandre Affonso \/ Revista Pesquisa FAPESP<\/span><\/div>
\n

Using data from Copernicus and five other international services that monitor the global average temperature, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) also confirmed that 2023 was the hottest year since records began in 1850. According to the WMO survey, last year’s temperature was 1.45 \u00b0C higher than the preindustrial average, almost equal to the value calculated independently by the European agency. The WMO\u2019s margin of error is 0.12 \u00b0C.<\/p>\n

\u201cClimate change is the biggest challenge that humanity faces. It is affecting all of us, especially the most vulnerable,\u201d said Argentine meteorologist Celeste Saulo, the WMO\u2019s first female secretary-general, in a press release. \u201cWe cannot afford to wait any longer. We are already taking action, but we have to do more and we have to do it quickly. We have to make drastic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and accelerate the transition to renewable energy sources.\u201d<\/p>\n

The latter half of last year was especially torrid. Every month between June and December 2023 was the hottest in modern history compared to the same month in each of the last 172 years, according to Copernicus. Most of the days that averaged 1.5 \u00baC above preindustrial temperatures last year occurred during this period (see graph<\/em><\/a>).<\/p>\n

The annual average atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2<\/sub>) and methane (CH4<\/sub>) \u2014 the two greenhouse gases that contribute most to global warming \u2014 continued to rise in 2023, remaining at the highest value ever recorded. The CO2<\/sub> concentration was measured at 419 parts per million (ppm) and CH4<\/sub> at 1,902 parts per billion (ppb).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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 civilization developed. This has profound consequences for the Paris Agreement and all human endeavors,\u201d said Italian physicist Carlo Buontempo, director of Copernicus, in a press release. \u201cIf we want to successfully manage our climate risk portfolio, we need to urgently decarbonize our economy whilst using climate data and knowledge to prepare for the future.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>

\n \n \n \n <\/picture>Alexandre Affonso \/ Revista Pesquisa FAPESP<\/span><\/div>
\n

Ratified at the end of 2015, the Paris Climate Agreement is an international treaty signed by almost 200 countries with the aim of limiting global warming this century to a maximum of 2 \u00b0C above the average preindustrial temperature. Ideally, the increase would be limited to 1.5 \u00b0C, which would still be considered high and would lead to a serious climate crisis, but for which the socioeconomic losses would, in theory, still be manageable.<\/p>\n

According to data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC), Earth\u2019s climate is currently almost 1.2 \u00b0C warmer than it was in the mid-nineteenth century. As indicated by the most recent global data, the 1.5 \u00b0C global warming threshold was equaled and exceeded for much of last year. \u201cI remember discussing at IPCC meetings that this limit would be reached within a few decades, but we are seeing it happening right now,\u201d says Pedro Leite da Silva Dias, a meteorologist from the Institute of Astronomy, Geophysics, and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of S\u00e3o Paulo (IAG-USP).<\/p>\n

Brazil is no exception when it comes to climate extremes. Last year was the country\u2019s hottest on record since the National Institute of Meteorology (INMET) began keeping records in 1961. The average temperature in 2023 was 24.92 \u00b0C, which is 0.03 \u00b0C hotter than the previous record, set in 2015, and 0.69 \u00b0C higher than the average for the period 1991\u20132020.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything indicated that 2023 was warmer than normal. We faced nine heat waves over the year,\u201d points out INMET meteorologist Danielle Ferreira. \u201cWe had a very atypical winter with few air mass inflows, and a spring in which the rainfall came late in central Brazil. In December, at the beginning of the summer, there was also little rain.\u201d<\/p>\n

The institute’s historical data indicate that the country is becoming warmer decade on decade. Four of Brazil\u2019s five hottest years occurred recently: in 2023, 2015, 2019, and 2016, in decreasing order of average temperature. Only the fifth was recorded in the previous century, in 1998.<\/p>\n

There is a general consensus that in addition to global climate change, the natural phenomenon of El Ni\u00f1o has had a significant part to play in the heat records set since last year. The weather event is characterized by unusual warming of surface waters in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. A moderate-strong El Ni\u00f1o has been occurring in this oceanic region since mid-2023, affecting temperatures and rainfall patterns in various areas of the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The global average temperature was 14.98 \u00b0C, almost 1.5 \u00b0C higher than in the preindustrial period","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":520100,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[159],"tags":[217,200],"coauthors":[101],"class_list":["post-515448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","tag-climate","tag-environment"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515448"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":525534,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515448\/revisions\/525534"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515448"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=515448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}