Now it's official:2023 was the hottest year ever.Thus El Niño changes the planet's climate

The report from the EU Copernicus agency confirms:average temperatures never so high since 1850.Harmful emissions are also growing

Now it's official:2023 was the warmest year on record since 1850, the date from which reliable scientific measurements are considered to exist.This was announced today by the EU Earth observation programme, Copernicus climate change (C3s).On almost half the days of the year just ended, according to scientists, the temperature was more than 1.5 degrees warmer than that recorded on average between 1850 and 1900.On two days in November the temperature was even more than 2 degrees higher for the first time.Thus the average global temperature is now dangerously close to the threshold of 1.5 degrees higher than in the pre-industrial period (1.48, to be precise):the risk, warns Copernicus, is that the limit set in the Paris Agreement will be exceeded within the next few months.Furthermore, never before in 2023 have so many extreme climatic events been recorded in the world on all continents, including heat waves, floods, droughts and fires.

Hot planet:how and why

In detail, the global average temperature on the Earth's surface was 14.98 degrees centigrade in 2023, 0.17 degrees higher than the previous annual record value set in 2016.The "take-off" of temperatures occurred particularly in the second half of the year.Every single month from June to December 2023 – Copernicus notes – was warmer than the corresponding month in any previous year.As for global average sea surface temperatures, these also "remained persistently and unusually high, reaching record levels for the period of the year from April to December".In particular, the transition to El Niño, the atmospheric warming phenomenon of the Pacific Ocean which began in late spring 2023, which causes an increase in precipitation in some areas and drought in others.Finally, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane also reached record levels in 2023, reaching 419 ppm (parts per million) and 1902 ppb (parts per billion) respectively.While estimated global carbon emissions from wildfires in 2023 increased by 30% compared to 2022, largely due to persistent fires in Canada.