2023 shaping up to be the hottest year since records began after sweltering September

When the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warned in May that the planet was heading for a period in which “global temperatures would rise to unprecedented levels,” it was absolutely right. From June 2023 onwards, measurements soared, breaking all previous ceilings. This meteorological summer — June, July, and August — has been the warmest on Earth since at least the mid-1850s, when reliable records began. September has followed the same trend: last month was the hottest September ever, according to data collected by the Copernicus Climate Change Service. According to the European Commission agency: “2023 is already shaping up to be the hottest year ever for the planet.”

But what has left many researchers mopping their brows is the wide margin by which these records are being broken. The global average temperature in September (which takes into account air temperature on land and on the sea surface) reached 16.38ºC (61.48ºF). This is 0.5ºC higher than the previous warmest September, 2020, a significant increase.

Copernicus also notes in its monthly bulletin that from January to September, the global temperature was 0.05ºC degrees higher than in the same period of 2016, which to date had been the warmest year on record. “Humanity has opened the gates to hell,” warned UN Secretary General António Guterres a couple of weeks ago when reviewing the torrid boreal summer that the world has experienced. “Horrendous heat is having horrendous effects,” he added.

But what is happening, and why are temperatures soaring? First off, as scientists have been warning for decades, the increase in global temperatures to these unknown limits is the most obvious consequence of the climate crisis that humans have provoked, mainly through the increasing use of fossil fuels. That is, the effect of oil, gas, and coal, which when burned to generate energy expel greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, overheating the planet.

The head of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, Carlo Buontempo, explained a month ago in an interview with EL PAÍS that the fact that this summer was the warmest ever “is not a rare or isolated case,” because “it is part of a generalized warming pattern of the climate” due to human activity. But, since the middle of this year, another phenomenon has exacerbated the effects of climate change: El Niño. This is a pattern of climate variability associated with warmer temperatures in the Pacific Ocean that affects the entire planet. Until this summer, the climate was under the influence of La Niña, the opposite phenomenon, but in June the conditions for the prevalence of El Niño began to form, which has contributed to record temperatures from the summer onwards.

“With two months to go until COP28, the sense of urgency for ambitious climate action has never been more critical,” Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, said in a statement. COP28 is the name given to the annual climate summit being held this year in Dubai. Two months before the start of this event, which will bring together representatives from nearly 200 countries to try to relaunch action against climate change, there are growing calls for an ambitious summit. On the one hand, the aim is for all nations to make a commitment to triple the implementation of renewable energies by 2030, in addition to considerably increasing energy efficiency. A group of countries are also trying to make an explicit call for the necessary abandonment of fossil fuels and an end to new oil and gas exploration.

In parallel to the various meetings of governments and institutions to promote the climate agenda, Pope Francis released a document on Wednesday in which he warns of the impacts of the climate crisis and criticizes the slow pace of abandoning fossil fuels and implementing clean energies, such as solar and wind power.

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