2023 Smashes Hottest Year Record
Last year was officially the world’s hottest on record, scientists said Tuesday, as months of searing heat toppled records left and right and caused a barrage of deadly heat waves. The EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service said that 2023 was 1.48 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels—just barely below the Paris Agreement’s lower limit of 1.5 degrees C—and that the world would likely pass 1.5 degrees in the coming years. 2023 saw almost 50% of days clock temperatures at 1.5 degrees C above preindustrial levels—a record number—while two days were, for the first time, above 2 degrees; every day in 2023 was at least 1 degree C above preindustrial levels. The 1.5 degree goal “has to be (kept) alive because lives are at risk and choices have to be made,” Copernicus Deputy Director Samantha Burgess told the AP. “And these choices don’t impact you and I but they impact our children and our grandchildren.” (AP, The Guardian, Washington Post $, New York Times $, Axios, CNN, WSJ $, Reuters, FT $, The Verge, NBC)
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