2023 will probably be the hottest year since industrialization. Gold waste, thought to be extinct, has been rediscovered after 87 years

According to United Nations (UN) climate experts, 2023 is likely to be the hottest year since industrialization.

The difference with the previously warmest years 2016 and 2020 was so great at the end of October that virtually nothing could change in November and December, the World Weather Organization (WMO) reported in its preliminary report on the state of the world climate. She published it on Thursday at the start of the COP28 world climate conference in Dubai. The final report will not be published until the first half of 2024.

Through October, the average global temperature was 1.4 degrees above the average from the 1850s to 1900s. So far, 2016 is considered the warmest year at plus 1.3 degrees above pre-industrial levels. 2020 was just behind 2016. In July, August, September and October of this year, global average temperatures each reached monthly records. What was particularly striking was that the global average sea surface temperature has recorded maximum values ​​every month since April.

Experts from the American weather agency NOAA and the EU climate change agency Copernicus have said several times that 2023 will almost certainly be the hottest year.

WMO chief Petteri Taalas spoke of a “deafening cacophony of broken records”. “We must act now to limit the risks of an increasingly inhospitable climate in this and the centuries to come.”

Climate experts hope that the more than 190 countries in Dubai will decide on measures for a faster transformation of the economy towards climate-neutral growth. In a video message, UN Secretary General António Guterres called on them to take drastic steps to achieve the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees. “There is still hope,” he said. (sda/dpa)