We have written a lot about how climate change drives the global temperature, and the dramatic effects rising temperatures will have on humans, their health, and nature, leading to severe drought and desertification.
Governments globally have agreed to keep temperatures below 1.5 Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels to avoid the worst impacts. We are seriously in the last moments to prevent detrimental effects on all life on earth because the world has already warmed by approximately 1.1 Celsius compared to levels before the Industrial Revolution.
Hottest year to be expected
Predictions suggest that 2023 will be the 10th year in a row when global temperature is at least 1 Celsius above the average. Furthermore, 2023 is predicted to be warmer than 2022 due to certain climate conditions, but to be fairly honest, actually one of the hottest on record. And we shouldn’t forget that 2022 was still on the list of the hottest years on record.
El Niño and La Niña
We need to understand two climate phenomena to see why 2023 is predicted to be warmer than last year and many other years. The warmest year since records began in 1850 was 2016, when meteorologists said the weather phenomenon known as El Niño boosted global temperatures. It is a natural oscillation driven by ocean temperatures and winds. But the past years have been influenced by another climate phenomenon called La Niña, which meant that cooler sea temperatures in the Pacific lowered the average global temperature.
However, this effect is now fading away. It will end after changing our temperatures for about three years, and the impact of El Niño will play a significant role again, meaning the cooling effect is over, and a warming weather pattern mistakes over its place.
What the forecast looks like and what it will mean
Temperatures in 2023 are forecast to be between 1.08C and 1.32C above the pre-industrial average. According to the World Meteorological Organization, “hundreds of weather stations across Europe had their all-time highest daily temperature for the months of December or January.”
As professor Adam Scaife, the head of the long-range prediction at the UK Met Office, explained to The Guardian: “It’s very likely that the next big El Niño could take us over 1.5C. The probability of having the first year at 1.5C in the next five-year period is now about 50:50. We know that under climate change, the impacts of El Niño events are going to get stronger, and you have to add that to the effects of climate change itself, which is growing all the time. You put those two things together, and we will likely see unprecedented heat waves during the next El Niño.”
This means that humans will have to be more and more prepared for what is coming, including the readiness for emergency services. We expect a decent amount of droughts and wildfires.
