Last summer’s sweltering heat broke more than city, regional and even national records. Scientists say that the summer of 2023 in the Northern Hemisphere will be the hottest summer in 2000 years, with what they call an “alarming finding”.
Global data already showed this last summer. It was the hottest on record. Copernicus, the European Union’s climate change monitoring agency, made this determination. But a new study published Tuesday in the journal Nature looked further back, using both observed and observed data. Temperatures reconstructed from centuries ago.
The researchers found that the temperature was “unique.”
According to the findings, the Northern Hemisphere experienced its hottest summer in the last 2000 years, with temperatures above 0.5 degrees Celsius.
Ulf Büntgen, co-author of the study from the University of Cambridge, said in a press release that last year was “extraordinarily hot” but the true extent of this heat can be seen when looking at historical records.
“When you look back over the long history, you can see how dramatic recent global warming has been,” Büntgen said, “…and this trend will continue unless we significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
The study also compared temperatures in June, July and August of 2023 to temperatures in the same months in AD 536, which one historian called “the beginning of one of the worst periods to be alive, if not the worst year.” It ushered in the coldest decade of the millennium due to major volcanic eruptions. The difference between that coldest summer and the hottest summer was 3.93 degrees Celsius.
When it comes to climate change, some people argue that the climate is constantly changing, as seen in the cold period that began in 536 AD. But lead author Jan Esper, of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in Germany, said this is true, but it persists. greenhouse gas emissions this really makes a difference. The burning of fossil fuels such as oil and coal releases a range of gases that trap the sun’s heat in the atmosphere, causing average temperatures to rise steadily. When paired with natural weather events like these El NiñoThis occurs as surface temperatures warm in the Pacific, only exacerbating the effect.
“We are facing longer and more severe heat waves and prolonged droughts,” Esper said. “When you look at the big picture, you see how urgent it is that we reduce greenhouse gas emissions immediately.”
Experts have long warned that the world must take action to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial times. Beyond that, the effects of rising temperatures, including more frequent and intense droughts, hurricanes and floods, are expected to worsen significantly, triggering global migrations, food shortages and other problems.
But based on observational records, the researchers in this study found that the Northern Hemisphere may have already exceeded O. They found that temperatures in the hemisphere last summer were 2.07 degrees Celsius warmer than average temperatures between 1850 and 1900.
“This alarming finding not only shows that 2023 will see the hottest summer ever recorded globally. [Northern Hemisphere] “The study shows that the 2015 Paris Agreement, which envisaged not only warming in extra-tropical regions but also limiting global warming to 1.5 °C, has already been repealed at this limited spatial scale.”
In their research, scientists found “inconsistencies” and uncertainties in the baseline temperatures that experts use to track temperature rise. These problems were largely due to a lack of station records in more remote parts of the world and “inadequately sheltered thermometers,” the researchers said.
Based on their own studies, they found that the weather in pre-industrial times was actually colder than thought when accounting for long cold periods. With this in mind, they found that the temperature difference between then and last summer was even greater, at 2.20 degrees Celsius.
The researchers noted that their findings were largely based solely on temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere because Southern Hemisphere data was scarce for the periods they analyzed. They also said the region responds differently to climate change because oceans are more widespread in the southern half of the world.
The researchers said that although worldwide temperature reconstruction and analysis has not been fully developed, their work “clearly demonstrates the unique nature of today’s temperature at large spatial scales and reinforces calls for urgent action towards net-zero emissions.”
The article comes as the planet continues to see consecutive months of heat records. fatal consequences. Meteorologists warned This summer may be as scorching as last summerTemperatures expected to be above normal across much of the US
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