Met Office and WMO confirm 2023 hottest year

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 thelatterpartoftheyear,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 average temperature having risen by around 1.25C since 18501900. Countries have committed to trying to stop the Earth heating beyond 1.5C above that baseline as each fraction of a degree adds to further climate chaos.

WMO secretary-general Professor Celeste Saulo 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.

“Theclimatecrisisisworsening the inequality crisis. It affects all aspects of sustainable development and undermineseffortstotackle 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: "At the current rate of human-induced warming, 2023's values will in time be considered to be cool in comparison with what projections of our future climate suggest."