The EU’s Copernicus Report is in, and the earth better brace itself for a long, hot, record breaking Summer. According to the report, the world could breach a new average temperature record in 2023 or 2024, fueled by climate change and the anticipated return of the El Nino weather phenomenon, climate scientists say.
Climate models suggest that after three years of the La Nina weather pattern in the Pacific Ocean, which generally lowers global temperatures slightly, the world will experience a return to El Nino, the warmer counterpart, later this year.
During El Nino, winds blowing west along the equator slow down, and warm water is pushed east, creating warmer surface ocean temperatures. “El Nino is normally associated with record breaking temperatures at the global level. Whether this will happen in 2023 or 2024 is not yet known, but it is, I think, more likely than not,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
Climate models suggest a return to El Nino conditions in the late boreal summer, and the possibility of a strong El Nino developing towards the end of the year, Buontempo said.
According to Reuters, the world’s hottest year on record so far was 2016, coinciding with a strong El Nino – although climate change has fueled extreme temperatures even in years without the phenomenon. The report also revealed that the last eight years were the world’s eight hottest on record – reflecting the longer-term warming trend driven by greenhouse gas emissions.
Friederike Otto, senior lecturer at Imperial College London’s Grantham Institute, said El Nino-fueled temperatures could worsen the climate change impacts countries are already experiencing – including severe heatwaves, drought and wildfires. “If El Niño does develop, there is a good chance 2023 will be even hotter than 2016 – considering the world has continued to warm as humans continue to burn fossil fuels,” Otto said.
EU Copernicus scientists published a report last week assessing the climate extremes the world experienced last year, and if you thought it seemed like an unusually hot one, you were right. The world’s average global temperature is now 1.2C higher than in pre-industrial times, Copernicus said.
While the report found that the world suffered through its fifth-warmest year on record last year, Europe experienced its hottest summer ever recorded in 2022, and it’s second warmest year on record. The heat’s effects were felt elsewhere, too: climate change-fueled extreme rain caused disastrous flooding in Pakistan, and in February, Antarctic sea ice levels hit a record low.
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