The past twelve months have been the warmest in 125,000 years

It was a summer full of extreme temperatures: heat waves, forest fires, storms and floods reached new dimensions. Now two studies confirm: the twelve months between November last year and October were the hottest humanity has experienced in at least 125,000 years.

In its latest analysis of international data, the US research group ‘Climate Central’ found that the past twelve months were on average 1.32 degrees warmer than before the start of industrialization.

“The bottom line is this is not normal. “We shouldn’t be experiencing these kinds of temperatures,” Andrew Pershing of “Climate Central” said of the results. The reason for these temperatures is that we humans emit too much CO₂ emitted into the atmosphere.

The research group also found that about 90 percent of the world’s population experienced “unusually high” temperatures for at least ten days. India was particularly hard hit: 86 percent of the Indian population experienced extremely high temperatures for at least 30 days.

A study from Europe comes to a similar conclusion. The publication of the European Union’s ‘Copernicus Climate Change Service’ concludes that 2023 will ‘almost certainly’ be the warmest year since measurements began. Last October it was 1.7 degrees warmer than in pre-industrial times, breaking the 2019 record by 0.4 degrees.

Temperature records have been broken every month since June 2023, and every month since July it has been at least 1.5 degrees warmer than before the start of industrialization. So far the year has been on average 1.43 degrees warmer – and therefore close to the 1.5 degree limit, which should not be exceeded. Although climate scientists focus on long-term trends, this year may have been a preview of how our climate will develop in the future.

Not only temperatures on land, but also those in the world’s oceans have reached alarming levels. Since May, these have also been breaking monthly records, increasing the number of tropical storms and hurricanes worldwide.

And although the year is slowly coming to an end, there are no signs of things calming down again. It is much too hot in China and the United States. From there, new record temperatures are also constantly reported. The upcoming UN climate conference COP28 in Dubai in December will therefore take on even more weight.

(anb)