Summer 2023 the Hottest in Two Thousand Years
New research has concluded that the extreme heat of summer 2023 in the Northern Hemisphere, which caused forest fires in the Mediterranean region, road collapses in Texas, USA, and stressed power grids in China, made last summer not only the hottest since records began but also the hottest in about 2000 years.
According to Reuters, this stark discovery was revealed in one of two new studies published on Tuesday, as global temperatures continue to rise and greenhouse gas emissions increase.
Scientists quickly announced that the period from June to August of last year was the hottest period since temperature recording began in the 1940s.
A new study published in the scientific journal “Nature” indicates that the heat of 2023 exceeded temperatures over a much longer period, a finding proven by examining weather records dating back to the mid-19th century and temperature data based on tree ring analysis from nine sites in the Northern Hemisphere.
Jan Esper, co-author of the study and climate scientist at Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany, stated: “When you look at the long history, you can see how tragic modern global warming is.”
The study found that last summer’s temperatures in areas between 30 and 90 degrees north latitude were 2.07 degrees Celsius (3.73 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than pre-industrial averages.
According to tree ring data, the summer months of 2023 were on average 2.2 degrees Celsius (4 degrees Fahrenheit) hotter than the estimated average temperature from the first century AD to 1890.
This result was not entirely a surprise. By January, scientists at the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service had said that 2023 was “very likely” to be the hottest year in about 100,000 years.
However, researcher Esper noted that proving such a long record is unlikely. Two other European scientists argued in a paper last year that year-to-year comparisons over such a long time span cannot be made with current scientific methods, including gathering temperature data from sources like marine sediments or peat bogs.
Esper added that last summer’s extreme heat was exacerbated by the El Niño climate phenomenon, which usually coincides with warmer global temperatures, leading to “longer and more intense heatwaves, and prolonged periods of drought.”
