ISLAMABAD: Global temperatures reached exc­e­ptionally high levels in 2023, as the unprecede­n­ted heat from June on­­wa­rds led 2023 to become the warmest year on record — overtaking the previous warmest year, 2016, by a large margin, according to the 2023 Glo­bal Climate Highlights rep­ort released on Tuesday.

The year-to-year incre­a­se in global average temperature was exceptiona­lly large from 2022 to 2023. It follows a transition from three years of La Nina in 2020–2022 to El Nino conditions in 2023, alth­ough other factors appear to have also played a role.

The report says 2023 marked the first time on record that every day within a year has exceeded 1°C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial level for that time of year. Nearly half the days were more than 1.5°C warmer than the 1850-1900 level, and two days in November were, for the first time, more than 2°C warmer.

Mauro Facchini, Head of Earth Observation at the Directorate General for Defence Industry and Space, European Commission, commented: “We knew thanks to the work of the Copernicus programme throughout 2023 that we would not receive good news today. But the annual data presented here provides yet more evidence of the increasing impacts of climate change.”

The ‘Copernicus Climate Change Service’ (C3S) monitored several key climate indicators throughout the year, reporting on record-breaking conditions such as the hottest month on record and daily global temperature averages briefly surpassing pre-industrial levels by more than 2C. Copernicus is a component of the European Union’s space and earth observation programme.

The evolution of the daily global average temperature shows that 2023 is noteworthy for the occurrence of the highest global temperatures on record, both in absolute terms, during July, and relative to the annual cycle, during November. Almost all days from the beginning of June were the warmest in the ERA5 data record for that particular day of the year.

The rise in air temperature since the mid-1970s has been about twice as large over land than over ice-free ocean, but each surface accounts for about half of the rise in global average air temperature, as the area of the Earth’s surface covered by ocean is much larger than the area covered by land, the annual climate summary shows.

Samantha Burgess, Deputy Director of the C3S said: “2023 was an exceptional year with climate records tumbling like dominoes. Not only is 2023 the warmest year on record, it is also the first year with all days over 1°C warmer than the pre-industrial period. Temperatures during 2023 likely exceed those of any period in at least the last 100,000 years”.

The distribution of surface air temperature anomalies across the globe in 2023 shows a marked contrast with that of 2022. Almost all land areas experienced above-average temperatures in 2023. Annual temperatures were more than 1°C higher than the 1991-2020 average over much of Europe and North America, and over several other regions.

The flagship report says marine heatwaves were a common occurrence in 2023, affecting regions such as the Mediterranean, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean and the North Pacific, and much of the North Atlantic.

Greenhouse gas concentrations in 2023 reached the highest levels ever recorded in the atmosphere and carbon dioxide concentrations in 2023 were 2.4 ppm higher than in 2022 and methane concentrations increased by 11 ppb.

Globally, annual economic losses from climate- and weather-related disasters have significantly increased since the 2000s. In low and lower-middle-income countries, 82 per cent of all damage and loss caused by drought concerned the agriculture sector.

Between 2008 and 2018, across least developed countries and lower middle-income countries, 34pc of disaster-related crop and livestock production losses were attributed to drought, followed by 19pc to flooding events, 18pc to severe storms and hurricanes, 9pc to crop pests and animal diseases, 6pc to extreme temperatures, and 1pc to wildfires.

Published in Dawn, January 10th, 2024