2023 may be the hottest in 100,000 years, will there be another heat wave on the earth in 2024?
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) issued a press release on January 12, officially confirming 2023 as the hottest year on record. This broke the warmest record and exceeded the expectations of many climate scientists.
The heating may not have stopped. In 2024, the El Niño weather pattern enters its second year, which typically exacerbates global warming. In January, warm waters poured into the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, and global ocean temperatures were significantly higher than the average for the same period. According to an article published on the British website "Nature", as humans continue to emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, more extreme weather and climate events may occur in 2024 than in 2023.
Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, said that heat waves will continue in 2024, but it is impossible to predict when and where they will occur.
The average annual temperature may exceed the threshold
According to data released by multiple services in early January, the global average surface temperature in 2023 is 1.34°C to 1.54°C above pre-industrial (1850-1900) levels. According to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, daily temperatures were at least 1°C above the pre-industrial average last year for the first time on record.
Estimates vary depending on the dataset used, but all analyses conclude that the global average annual temperature is close to or above the 1.5°C threshold set by the Paris Agreement. Nearly half of the days in 2023 were more than 1.5°C above the pre-industrial average, with two days in November rising by more than 2°C, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service.
According to the analysis of the National Weather Service, the temperature in 2023 is 1.46°C above the pre-industrial average. The agency predicts that in 2024, the global average surface temperature is likely to exceed the 1.5°C mark. Nick Dunstone, a climate scientist leading the effort, said it was the first time they had made such a prediction. However, warming more than 1.5°C a year does not mean that the world is in breach of the Paris Agreement. Researchers say it will take a decade or more to exceed that threshold before it can be officially determined.
The extreme climate and weather impacts of 2023 highlight how humans have fundamentally changed the planet. Climate scientists say that if action is not taken now, the current experience is a preview of the future.
2023 may be the hottest in 100,000 years
Various climate data services agree that 2023 has experienced the hottest day on record (July 6), the hottest month on record (July), and the hottest months on record (including June to December). When the researchers combined modern temperature records with paleoclimate temperature indicators, they found that 2023 could be the hottest year in 100,000 years.
Burgess said there are many factors that contribute to extreme weather in 2023. In 2023, carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels reached a record high of 36.8 billion tonnes. In 2022, a volcanic eruption in Tonga, which injected heat-absorbing water vapor into the atmosphere, was also a factor.
Another factor is El Niño. Simulations show that the Earth is now at or near the peak of El Niño. The current high heat in the global ocean is likely to fuel marine heatwaves in the coming months, Burgess said.
But researchers are still unsure whether extreme temperatures in 2023 are signs that global warming is accelerating or are partly due to fluctuations caused by natural variability in the global climate system.
Berkeley Earth, a nonprofit research organization in the United States, said temperatures began to soar before El Niño in June 2023, in part due to natural variability in the North Atlantic and beyond. The team predicts a 58% chance that this year will be warmer than last year, and 2024 will surely be the hottest or second hottest year on record.
Future scenarios for climate change are already emerging
Due to climate change, extreme weather will occur frequently in 2023. Among them was Category 5 Hurricane Otis, which struck the Mexican city of Acapulco, killing dozens of people. Smoke from wildfires in Quebec, Canada, in June and July spread to many cities in the Midwest and Northeast of the United States, and even across the ocean to parts of Europe. In July and August, fires raged across Greece, burning forests and claiming the lives of many people and animals. In August, on the Hawaiian island of Maui, at least 100 people were killed in a wildfire sparked by strong winds and invasive weeds.
The heat wave has also "scorched" many parts of the world. Phoenix, Arizona, USA, has been in high temperatures of 43°C or above for 31 consecutive days. In Mexico, a heat wave in July killed more than 200 people. Three years of drought and climate change have left East Africa facing a food crisis and a refugee crisis at the same time.
At the end of 2023, at the 28th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP28) in Dubai, global leaders agreed for the first time to move away from fossil fuels, but many felt that the move was "too little and too late" relative to the huge impact of climate change.
"Future scenarios for climate change are already emerging. "We don't need to wait another 15 or 20 years to see the changes and impacts that are expected to happen in the future." ”
