Our planet is on track to endure its warmest year yet, following a record-breaking October, just ahead of an imminent climate summit. Scientists from the Copernicus European Earth observation agency reported that last month globally marked the hottest on record, with temperatures surpassing the long-term average by 0.8 degrees Celsius, as indicated in a Financial Times (FT) report. The temperature spike in October was more than double the increase observed in September and marked the highest recorded temperature for the month. It is a result of the burning of fossil fuels, which releases heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere.
Samantha Burgess, Deputy Director of Copernicus, highlighted the exceptional October followed four months of global temperature records being obliterated.
Concerns were raised by experts regarding this continuous trend of record-breaking temperatures. David Reay, a climate scientist at Edinburgh University, expressed, "Laid out so starkly, the 2023 numbers on air temperatures, sea temperatures, sea ice, and the rest look like something out of a Hollywood movie". If our current global efforts to tackle climate change were a film, it would be called Hot Mess", he added.
Image source: AFP
One of the pivotal agreements established at the Paris summit eight years ago required world leaders to commit to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. However, The Guardian reports that existing policies are on track to result in a temperature increase of approximately 2.4 degrees Celsius.
The unusually warm October 2023 serves as another distressing example of how temperature records are being shattered by a significant margin, according to Akshay Deoras, a meteorology research scientist at the University of Reading. He attributes this phenomenon to global warming caused by escalating greenhouse gas emissions and the El Niño effect in the tropical Pacific Ocean.
Copernicus scientists also discovered that the average global mean temperature from January to October this year was the highest on record, surpassing the 10-month average of the previous record-holder in 2016 by 0.1 degrees Celsius.
The upcoming COP28 climate conference in Dubai, scheduled from November 30 to December 12, is expected to see the Copernicus report become a crucial focal point during discussions among world leaders.
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