Rate of Global Warming Reached a Record High in 2023, Scientists Say

Scientists have determined that the rate of global warming increased in 2023, the same year that the Northern Hemisphere experienced its hottest summer on record. The vast majority, 92%, of extreme heat in 2023 could be attributed to humans, scientists said.

A team of 57 scientists completed research on the high temperatures the world experienced in 2023 and used methods approved by the United Nations to investigate the warming, The Associated Press reported. They found that the world reached a warming rate of 0.26 degrees Celsius (0.47 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade in 2023, a record high rate. In 2022, the warming rate per decade had been 0.25 degrees Celsius (0.45 degrees Fahrenheit). They published their findings in the journal Earth System Science Data.

According to the study, the average greenhouse gas emissions per decade have been on a constant increase since the 1970s, especially because of an increase in carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels. There have also been increases in methane and nitrous oxide, the report noted.

However, the report authors wrote that while the rate of warming reached a record in 2023, it was still in line with the warming rates of the past few decades and met warming predictions established from a 2001 through 2020 time frame to 2021 through 2040.

“If you look at this world accelerating or going through a big tipping point, things aren’t doing that,” Piers Forster, lead author of the study and a professor of climate physics at Leeds University, told The Associated Press. “Things are increasing in temperature and getting worse in sort of exactly the way we predicted.”

The study found that the increase in global surface temperatures could be linked primarily to a wide range of human activities. While fossil fuel and industry were the primary factors, according to scientists, they also noted land use, contrails and other factors played a part in the increased warming rate.

The warming was also impacted by natural factors, including volcanic activity and the El Niño climate pattern that took place for much of 2023. Last year, the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization (WMO) had warned that El Niño could push global temperatures past the 1.5 degree Celsius threshold outlined in the Paris Agreement. An international team of scientists have predicted that El Niño could contribute to global heating this year, too.

According to the new study, the average global temperature for 2023 reached 1.43 degrees Celsius over the pre-industrial average, and over the past decade, average warming is about 1.19 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial global temperatures.

With this, the scientists wrote that the 1.5 degree Celsius warming limit could be reached or exceeded within the next decade, but there is hope that emissions and the rate of warming could decline with societal changes.

“Acceleration if it were to happen would be even worse, like hitting a global tipping point, it would be probably the worst scenario,” Sonia Seneviratne, co-author of the study and the head of land-climate dynamics at ETH Zurich, told The Associated Press. “But what is happening is already extremely bad and it is having major impacts already now. We are in the middle of a crisis.”