This year is “virtually certain” to be the hottest year in recorded history, the World Meteorological Organization announced on Thursday at COP28, the United Nations climate summit in Dubai where delegates from nearly 200 countries, including many heads of state and government, have gathered.
The organization said 2023 has been about 1.4 degrees Celsius, or about 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit, above the global average preindustrial temperature from 1850 to 1990.
The past nine years have collectively been the warmest in 174 years of recorded scientific observations, with the previous single-year records set in 2020 and 2016.
This comes in addition to record greenhouse gas concentrations, sea levels and concentrations of methane.
“It’s a deafening cacophony of broken records,” Petteri Taalas, the secretary general of the World Meteorological Organization, said in Dubai.
Persons:
” Petteri Taalas
Organizations:
World Meteorological Organization
Locations:
COP28, United Nations, Dubai