Rising sea levels are causing constant flooding in Bangladesh. WMO: climate change indicators reach record levels in 2023 Climate and Environment
2023 is by far the warmest year on record, according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Once again, records were broken for greenhouse gases, surface temperatures, heat content and ocean acidification, sea level rise, Antarctic sea ice and glacier retreat.
Heat waves, floods, droughts, wildfires and intensifying tropical cyclones have caused suffering and chaos. Economic damage from extreme weather events and natural disasters is estimated in the billions of dollars.
The average global surface temperature in 2023 is 1.45 degrees Celsius (with an error of ±0.12 degrees Celsius) above the pre-industrial level. The WMO also reports that the past decade was the warmest on record.
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“All indicators are alarming… Some values are not they just break records, they crush them. And change is happening faster and faster,” said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.
60~p>“Never before have we been closer, albeit temporarily, to a [warming] of 1.5 degrees Celsius set by the Paris Agreement on climate change,” said WMO head Celeste Saulo. “The WMO community is sending a red alert to the world,” she added.
Saulo noted that climate change is not only an increase in temperature. Other phenomena observed in 2023 are of particular concern: unprecedented ocean warming, glacier retreat and loss of Antarctic sea ice. On an average day in 2023, nearly a third of the world’s oceans were in the grip of heat waves, affecting critical environmental and food systems. By the end of 2023, more than 90 percent of the ocean surface will have been affected by heat waves.
Material being updated…