NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) has reported that the summer of 2023 was the warmest since worldwide records began in 1880. The record-breaking temperatures, which were 0.41 degrees Fahrenheit (0.23 degrees Celsius) higher than any previous summer in NASA’s record, were 2.1 degrees Fahrenheit (1.2 degrees Celsius) higher than the average summer between 1951 and 1980. August was 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.2 degrees Celsius) warmer than usual.
The extreme heat raced over most of the globe, intensifying wildfires in Canada and Hawaii, causing searing heat waves in South America, Japan, Europe, and the United States, as well as potentially contributing to heavy rains in Italy, Greece, and Central Europe. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson stated that these record-breaking temperatures have dire real-world consequences, endangering lives and livelihoods across the planet.
NASA’s temperature record, known as GISTEMP, is assembled from surface air temperature data collected by tens of thousands of meteorological stations and sea surface temperature data collected by ship- and buoy-based devices. Temperature anomalies are calculated rather than absolute temperatures in the analysis, illustrating how much temperatures have deviated from the 1951 to 1980 base average.
El Nino, a natural climatic phenomenon that causes warmer-than-normal sea surface temperatures and higher sea levels in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, is largely responsible for the summer’s record warmth. The record-breaking summer of 2023 follows a long-term warming trend, with NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and other international agencies indicating that this warming is predominantly caused by human-induced greenhouse gas emissions. El Nio is expected to have the greatest impact in February, March, and April 2024, characterized by a weakening of easterly trade winds and the passage of warm water from the western Pacific to the Americas’ western shore.
Source: nasa.gov
