2023 officially warmest year in recorded history
Photo: iStock With six record-breaking months and two record-breaking seasons, 2023 is officially the warmest year in recorded history. November 2023 was the warmest November on record globally, according to a new analysis by Copernicus Climate Change Service, the European Union’s Earth observation programme.
November 2023 was approximately 1.75 degrees Celsius warmer than an estimate of the November average for 1850-1900, the designated pre-industrial reference period. The month also saw two days that were 2°C warmer than the pre-industrial average.
The analysis comes as the first week of climate discussions wrap up in Dubai, United Arab Emirates at 28th Conference of Parties (COP28) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The average surface air temperature for November 2023 was 14.22°C, 0.85°C above the pre-industrial period average for the month. It was also 0.32°C hotter than the temperature of the previous warmest November recorded in 2020, the Copernicus analysis said.
The boreal autumn September–November 2023 was also the warmest on record globally by a large margin, the analysis added. The average temperature of the season was 15.30°C — 0.88°C above average.
“2023 has now had six record breaking months and two record breaking seasons. The extraordinary global November temperatures, including two days warmer than 2ºC above preindustrial, mean that 2023 is the warmest year in recorded history,” said Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the service.
The anomaly in global temperature for November 2023 — 0.85°C — was comparable to October 2023. However, it was lower than the September 2023 anomaly of 0.93°C.
From January 2023 to November 2023, the global mean temperature for 2023 was the highest on record, 1.46°C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average. It is 0.13°C warmer than the eleven-month average for 2016, currently the warmest calendar year on record, the analysis further said.
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