2023 Was the Hottest Year on Record by Far, EU Agency Confirms

It's official: 2023 was the hottest year in recorded history dating back to 1850, according to the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service.

"Global temperatures reached exceptionally high levels in 2023," according to a press release from Copernicus. Unprecedentedly high temperatures, particularly in June and throughout the rest of last year pushed the last 12 months' temperature average soaring past the previous record, set in 2016.

The year of 2023 was 1.48 degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial temperatures, breaking 2016's record by a "large margin," the service said. This figure is extremely close to the Paris Agreement's warming target to keep global temperatures below 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. But while 2023's record suggests that point is close at hand, the Paris Agreement is to do with long-term trends, and not a single year.

Still, scientists argue that climate change is now accelerating rapidly, but the presence of a strong El Niño has also helped raise global average temperatures. El Niño is a global weather pattern whereby warm waters in the Pacific Ocean release extra heat into the atmosphere, juicing the warming overall.

Copernicus also confirmed that December was the warmest such month on record, at 1.78 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average. That means that each of the last six months were the warmest of their respective months in recorded history. And September set the record for the most anomalous month, which means it had the greatest departure from the average ever seen.

The El Niño weather pattern is expected to persist at least until the spring, and it is possible that 2024 could break temperature records yet again.