One of the critical thresholds for global warming has been crossed. The European Union’s climate watchdog has warned that 2023 could be the warmest year on record, after the global average surface temperature exceeded the 1.5°C threshold in June.Samantha Burgess, Deputy Director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, said in a statement: “The world experienced the warmest June on record, after a May that was 0.1°C colder than the warmest May on record. It is more important than ever to monitor our climate to determine whether the
June broke the record
It should be noted that the Paris Agreement on climate change aims to keep global warming below 2°C and to limit it to 1.5°C. The EU-funded Copernicus Climate Change Service said in early June that the global average surface air temperature was 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, a first for a summer month.
The World Meteorological Organization published a report in May 2023, stating that global temperatures would reach new records in the next five years. Between 2023 and 2027, there is a 66 percent chance that the annual average near-surface global temperature will be 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels for at least one year, the report said. The report also noted that there is a 98 percent probability that at least one of the next five years and the entire five-year period will be the warmest on record.Copernicus reports that the warm period of early June 2023 may repeat in the next 12 months because the Earth is under the influence of El Niño. El Nino refers to the abnormal warming of surface waters in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. This natural climatic event will exert a kind of steroid effect on global warming.
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