March 19 (UPI) — The World Meteorological Organization said in a new report released Tuesday that 2023 was the hottest year on record, leaving behind numerous weather-related catastrophes in its wake.
The WMO’s Global Climate Report said in 2023, the global average near-surface temperature was 1.45 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial baseline, with a margin of uncertainty of plus-minus 0.12 degrees Celsius. It also marked the warmest 10-year stretch ever recorded, as well at 1.20 degrees Celsius.
The organization said 2023 shattered the record for the warmest ocean temperature, highest sea-level rise, sea ice loss in the Antarctic and loss of glacier retreat.
“Never have we been so close — albeit on a temporary basis at the moment — to the 1.5 degree Celsius lower limit of the Paris Agreement on climate change,” the WMO’s Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said in a statement.
“The WMO community is sounding the Red Alert to the world. Climate change is about much more than temperatures. What we witnessed in 2023, especially with the unprecedented ocean warmth, glacier retreat and Antarctic Sea ice loss, is cause for particular concern.”
The report said the sea level rise was one of the most dramatic parts of climate change over the past year. It said the global mean sea level reached its highest point since the satellite record, or 1993.
“The rate of global mean sea level rise in the past 10 years is more than twice the rate of sea level rise in the first decade of the satellite record, from 1993 to 2002,” the report said.
The report said the global set of reference glaciers sustained edits largest ice loss on record, driven by melting in western North America and Europe. At the same time, Antarctic sea ice extent fell to its lowest point on record, disappearing in size of that equivalent to France and Germany combined, the report said.
The WHO report comes on the heels of the European Commission’s weather service report earlier this month saying February was the hottest on record, reaching 1.77 degrees Celsius, well above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial reference point.
