Last year was the hottest year on record “by a huge margin”, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the Met Office have confirmed.
Their analysis follows that of the EU’s climate change service Copernicus earlier this week which showed each month from June to December being the hottest corresponding month on record.
Scientists believe El Nino, which brings heat from the oceans to the atmosphere over multi-year cycles, contributed to the added heat in the latter part of the year, but said warming from greenhouse gases was “unequivocally” responsible.
Each decade has been warmer than the last since the 1980s, the Met Office said, with the global multi-year average temperature having risen by around 1.25C since the period 1850-1900.
Countries have committed to trying to stop the Earth heating beyond 1.5C above that pre-industrial baseline as each fraction of a degree adds to further climate chaos and human suffering.
WMO secretary-general Professor Celeste Saulo, who took over the position on January 1, said: “While El Nino events are naturally occurring and come and go from one year to the next, longer term climate change is escalating and this is unequivocally because of human activities.
“The climate crisis is worsening the inequality crisis. It affects all aspects of sustainable development and undermines efforts to tackle poverty, hunger, ill-health, displacement and environmental degradation.”
Global temperatures are projected to rise by around 3C above pre-industrial levels by 2100 with the climate policies currently in place.
Professor Tim Osborn of the University of East Anglia’s climatic research unit, who collaborated with the Met Office analysis, said:
“Twenty-five years ago, 1998 was a record-breaking year for global average temperature.
“But last year’s global temperature was 0.5C warmer than 1998, providing further evidence that our planet is warming on average by 0.2C per decade.
“At the current rate of human-induced warming, 2023’s record-breaking values will in time be considered to be cool in comparison with what projections of our future climate suggest.”
