Expert comment: 2023 set to be warmest year on record

2023 is set to be the warmest year on record, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).

The Service’s latest climate bulletin shows that September 2023 was the warmest September ever recorded, with an average surface air temperature of 16.38°C, 0.93°C above the 1991-2020 average for September and 0.5°C above the temperature of the previous warmest September, in 2020.  

Experts from the University of Reading have reacted to the latest C3S data. 

Professor Hannah Cloke, Professor of Hydrology at the University of Reading, said: “These latest figures for September, on top of a record-breaking summer, provide a clearer sign than ever that the world is heating and changing natural conditions beyond the experience of any human in history.

“This is a clear reminder to us all that we are really not doing very well at all, if we want to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Targets for 2050 will be irrelevant if we continue to emit earth-shattering levels of greenhouse gases up until that point. This is clearly understood, not only by the scientists, but by every government in the world which has agreed the UN's scientific reports via the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“Now is the time to find ways to curb emissions worldwide faster, not slower. There is a positive future, with cleaner, safer, more plentiful and secure energy supplies, distributed more equally across the world. But we won't get there with more of the same. We need a faster shift, not in 2050 or 2030, but now, now, now.”

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Professor Chris Hilson, Director of the Centre for Climate and Justice at the University of Reading, said: “How should we react to the fact that that September 2023 was the warmest September on record globally and that 2023 is set to be the warmest year on record? The danger is that the public will gradually become immune to the flow of records like this being increasingly broken. The job of politicians – especially in the lead up to COP28 UAE – is to take notice of these flashing warning lights on the global climate dashboard, before it is too late. 

“There is an urgent need to reach an agreement to phase out fossil fuels and to provide appropriate finance so that all countries can decarbonise their economies. Without that, we risk not only more abstract temperature records being broken, but also the very real harms that follow from that like more intense and frequent heatwaves, wildfires, droughts, and floods. Those are far from abstract, as events in 2023 from Hawaii, Pakistan, Rhodes, and New York have sadly shown us all too clearly.”

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Professor Richard Allan, Professor in Climate Science at the University of Reading, said: “The global average temperature record for September has been obliterated and 2023 as a whole looks set to be the hottest year yet recorded. The primary cause of this global warmth is the continued heating from rising greenhouse gas levels with an extra nudge from the growing warmth in the east Pacific as part of the natural El Niño climate fluctuation. This additional heating effect will most likely peak at the beginning of 2024, which is also expected to be a record warm year with disrupted weather patterns. 2023 has already been subject to severe hot, wet and dry weather extremes that have included serious wildfires but without rapid and massive cuts in greenhouse gases across all sectors of society we’ve unfortunately only witnessed the tip of the iceberg.”

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Dr Akshay Deoras, Research Scientist, National Centre for Atmospheric Science and University of Reading, said: "The sizzling September 2023 is an unfortunate example that shows how temperature records are getting shattered by a humongous margin. Global warming due to increased greenhouse gas emissions and El Niño in the tropical Pacific Ocean are hitting the planet really hard. It is frightening to see that the global temperature since June 2023 is nowhere close to that during the 2015 summer when El Niño was much stronger. Our planet continues to pass through unfortunate milestones in its meteorological history, and it won’t be surprising to see new records in subsequent months."