The weather is not good. The thermometers are not good. The ecosystems are not well. Biodiversity is not good. Humans who have suffered the impacts of multiple extreme events are not doing well. Nothing is in this 2023 full of records, suffering and pain. COP28 started this Thursday and the World Meteorological Organizations (WMO) took the opportunity to present its provisional report on the state of the climate . A document that should be a lighthouse for the climate negotiations, which this year are chaired by the head of a fossil company. There are 35 pages where the milestones of the year and the causes and consequences of global warming are collected.
Most of the data is already known from other organizations and studies published months ago. But now, the WMO – as the highest authority on weather, climate and water – orders and unifies them. The 2023 State of the Climate Report is interim . The final version, with the year already over, will be published in the first half of 2024. 2023 will be the hottest year globally since there are records . Until October, the temperature has been approximately 1.40 ºC above the reference value representative of the pre-industrial era (1850-1900). At the moment, the Special Data warmest year is 2016 – with a warming of 1.29 ºC –, followed by 2020, which was 1.27 ºC above pre-industrial times. 2023 is so doped that the values recorded in November and December will not prevent it from taking first place. What happened at a meteorological and climatic level in 2023 is not an anecdote but is part of what is expected in a context of global warming driven by the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.
The last nine years – from 2015 to 2023 – have been the nine warmest years on record . And everything indicates that 2024 will join the party with an episode of El Niño – a phenomenon that increases temperatures even more – that will intensify throughout next year. The months of June, July, August, September and have been historic. The highest global average temperature was reached for each of those months. And if there is one that stands out, it is July of this year: it recorded the hottest day in history and is the hottest month ever recorded . To understand the warming of the planet, it is enough to analyze the atmosphere. In 2023, the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) will be around 420 parts per million , very far from the considered 'safe' value of 350 ppm, exceeded in the 90s.