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The 2015 Paris Agreement, meant to constrain global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, has already been breached, according to European scientists who found that last summer was Earth‘s hottest in the past 2,000 years across the Northern Hemisphere.
More specifically, the new estimates, derived from tree ring records, show the summer of 2023 was 2.07 degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial levels — which means the world warmed beyond previous estimates, which placed the quantity at 1.48 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Comparatively sparse data about the Southern Hemisphere, which responds differently to climate change than its northern counterpart, makes it difficult to draw conclusions about that region’s climate over the past two thousand years, the scientists say, which is why their study focuses on the Northern Hemisphere.
Nonetheless, the new finding doesn’t come as a surprise to climate scientists after we’ve seen record-setting temperatures sweltering in the U.S., Europe, China and other areas across the world throughout last summer. It was hot enough to throw Antarctic sea ice to unmatched lows and spark the worst wildfire season in Canada yet, which scorched an unprecedented 45 million hectares of land.
Learn how NASA and other organizations compile the average global temperature every year.
“I’m not surprised,” Jan Esper, a climate scientist at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany, told reporters during a press briefing. “I am worried about global warming — it’s one of the biggest threats out there.”
On top of global warming driven by greenhouse gas emissions, primarily a result of human activities such as burning coal, the unparalleled heat of 2023 was exacerbated by El Niño, which is a recurring weather pattern unfolding in the Pacific Ocean that’s linked to warmer temperatures on average. Scientists say global warming caused by heat-trapping gases has been strengthening El Niño over the past 60 years, which affects weather worldwide by spiking temperatures that are already high, and resulting in hotter, longer summers with severe heatwaves like those seen last year.
Although the weather pattern is now weakening toward neutral conditions, scientists warn that this summer is likely to shatter records once again. April has already been reported to be the hottest on record after extreme ocean heat persisted for the 13th consecutive month, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
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This article originally appeared here and was republished with permission.
