The intensity of global warming last year exceeded all expected limits and led to various extreme weather events and natural disasters.
According to information from various climate centers (Copernicus, ECMWF, European Commission), last year was approximately 1.48 °C warmer than the average for the long-term period in the pre-industrial era (i.e. the second half of the 19th century) and with a margin of 0. 17°C surpassed the previous record warm year – 2016. The average annual temperature on the planet reached 14.98 °C. As the data show, starting from June 2023, a new global maximum air temperature was observed almost every day (see Fig. 1). The surface temperature of the world’s oceans also broke all records. Such rapid and outrageous climate records pose a new challenge to humanity and force us to radically rethink many things.
It is known that the world is much warmer now than 100 years ago, as people continue to emit record amounts of greenhouse gases (methane, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, etc.) into the atmosphere. However, just a year ago, no major scientific organization predicted that 2023 would be the hottest year on record due to the extremely complex behavior of the climate system.
