Goodbye 2023 – a summary of a particularly hot year
At year's end, 2023 was declared the hottest year in human history, with a temperature of approximately 1.5°C higher than the pre-industrial period. So what did we see this year?
2023 is behind us and we are looking forward to 2024.
This is a challenging time in Israel. As if the clock stopped on October 7th, the war, pain, tension and upheaval that we have all experienced as individuals and as a country leave almost no room for thoughts on other issues.
As a result, it's not surprising that among many people there is a feeling that the problems of the world have been pushed aside in the face of very current, tangible threats, and yet, even if our heads are somewhere else at the moment, we also know that the climate crisis isn't going anywhere.
2023 was a record year and the official data is in: this was the hottest year measured in history, warmer by 1.54°C relative to the pre-industrial period. This is after a number of years in which temperature records were also broken.
Quite amazingly, young people under the age of 22 have lived every year of their lives through the hottest years on the planet.
2023 was full of records and extreme events.
Record #1 – Surface temperatures:
The following graph shows the average global temperature of each year. Years 1940 to 2021 are represented by grey lines, 2022 is in orange and 2023 is in black. The dashed lines in the graph represent multi-year temperature averages, with the highest line representing the 30-year temperature average between 1991-2020.
In 2023 (the black line), we can see that the temperatures, which were already higher than the average, began to deviate significantly from the middle of the year and completely disconnected from the normal temperature range, to the extent that the graph was updated to raise the Y axis.
Source: Climate Reanalyzer
Record #2 – Sea surface temperatures:
Around April 2023, a murmur began among climate change scientists about something strange happening in the North Atlantic Ocean. Sea surface temperatures began to rise extremely fast and the increase became more pronounced as the year progressed.
The following figure shows the difference in sea surface temperatures between June-August 2023, relative to the average from years 1991-2022. Here, too, we see record-breaking ocean temperatures, even before the impact of the El Niño phenomenon which raises global average temperatures, and whose effects can start to be seen in this figure along the coast of Peru.
Sea surface temperatures have implications for the weather, sea currents, storm intensity and more. On a global level, if we look at sea surface temperatures between the 60th parallel latitudes north and south, for over 6 months there has hardly been a day when the sea surface temperature has dropped by half a degree compared to the multi-year average (1981-2011).
Do you think that January will bring a change in this trend? Go to the Climatereanalyzer website to see how 2024 started.
Source: Climate Reanalyzer
Record #3 – Sea ice:
The area of Antarctic Sea Ice in 2022, represented by the dashed red line, was the lowest since measurements began. However, 2023 (green line) leaves its predecessor far behind…
Source: National Snow and Ice Data Center
Record #4 – Extreme events:
2023 was a year full of significant events.
Hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones are different names for the same phenomenon - a huge tropical storm that stretches for hundreds of kilometers and produces extreme amounts of rain and wind damage.
These storms come about under particular atmospheric conditions, including high sea surface temperatures of at least 27°C. As the Earth warms, the increased energy enables these storms to develop and intensify at a faster rate.
The scale of intensity of tropical storms ranges from 1 to 5 (Saffir-Simpson scale), where 5 is the most powerful level, characterized by strong winds at a speed of over 252 km per hour.
2023 was the first year in which all the oceans experienced category 5 tropical storms in the same year!
Hurricane Freddy. By: NASA/Suomi-NPP - EOSDIS Worldview
Wildfires: Last June, the residents of New York along with about 400 million other North Americans were affected by air pollution that originated from fires in Canada. The fire season was longer than usual, starting earlier and ending later. While the number of fires was not particularly unusual, they were larger in scope with hundreds of fires covering over 100 square kilometers each, earning the dubious title of "mega-fires".
Smoke from Quebec wildfires in Ney Jersey & New York, June 7th 2023. Source:
Anthony Quintano
In August, the historic town of Lahaina in Hawaii suffered the "perfect storm" of prolonged drought, the growth of invasive grass and strong winds from a nearby hurricane. It appears that this caused the collapse of electricity pylons, igniting a fire that cut off all communication and emergency systems. The inferno consumed everything in its path and resulted in the death of over 100 people.
Lahaina, Hawaii. August 17th. Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/40567541@N08/53119800785/
Floods:
Until a few years ago, unlike their counterparts in the US, storms in the Mediterranean were not given names. Yet with rising temperatures and increasing awareness of the impacts of climate change, the meteorological authorities of countries in the Mediterranean basin took the joint decision to name storms that are likely to be particularly powerful.
Such was the case with storm 'Daniel' that occurred in September and caused extensive damage and loss of life in Libya, Greece, Bulgaria and Turkey.
Around the city of Darna in Libya, the storm brought with it heavy rains that led to the collapse of 2 dams, resulting in huge flooding that claimed the lives of at least 4,000 people with thousands more still missing to this day.
Satellite image, before ‘Daniel’
Libya, Flooded areas
Source: NASA
These are only some of the records and extreme events of 2023.
2024 has all the signs of being another especially hot year. In the next newsletters we will continue to update about climate news and other developments.
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