Halfway into the year 2023, countries across the world have already been witnessing erratic climatic events. As the threat of global warming breaching historic records looms large, the US government climate experts have warned there is a 50 per cent chance that 2023 will be the warmest year ever recorded and predicted that next year could be even hotter.
“2023 to date has been the third warmest on record,” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) chief scientist Sarah Kapnick told reporters on Monday (Aug 14).
“It is virtually certain—over 99 per cent chance—that 2023 will rank among the five warmest years on record with a nearly 50 per cent probability that 2023 will rank warmest on record,” Kapnick said.
The director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Gavin Schmidt, said that the presence of El Nino over the Pacific could further drive up the temperatures next year.
“The biggest impact of El Niño will actually occur in 2024,” Schmidt said.
Next year to be even hotter
“So, we’re anticipating that not only is 2023 going to be exceptionally warm and possibly a record warm year, but we anticipate that 2024 will be warmer still.”
On Monday, both NOAA and NASA said that July was the hottest month on record for Earth since the record-keeping began 174 years ago.
Both global sea-surface and land temperatures soared well above longstanding averages.
Since July is climatologically the hottest month of the year, this year’s numbers likely mean it was the hottest month on record overall, NOAA said in a news release.
In a separate release issued on Tuesday (Aug 15), NASA said scientists at its Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York determined that “July 2023 was hotter than any other month in the global temperature record.”
July was so hot that the United Nations officials announced it would likely break the planet’s monthly record before the month was even over.
“July 2023 marked the 47th-consecutive July and the 533rd-consecutive month with temperatures at least nominally above the 20th-century average,” the agency said.
Parts of South America, North Africa, North America, and the Antarctic Peninsula were especially hot during which temperatures increased around 4 degrees Celsius above average.
NASA said that the ocean temperatures were especially warm in the eastern tropical Pacific due to the advent of El Nino which began developing in May 2023.
