This map shows global temperature anomalies for the meteorological summer of 2023 (June, July and August). It shows how hot or cold different parts of the world were compared to the baseline average from 1951 to 1980. (Image credit: NASA Earth Observatory/Lauren Dauphin)

Scorching heat in North America, Europe, Asia and elsewhere has made this summer the hottest on Earth since at least 1880, NASA confirmed yesterday (September 14), citing the time when global temperature records began.

According to the space agency, the record heat in 2023 is a result of human-caused global warming and is being exacerbated by a recurring climate pattern known as El Niño. In a statement summarizing the analysis, it was stated that August alone was 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.2 degrees Celsius) hotter than the average summer, setting a record for the hottest temperatures experienced by 57 million people in the US South and Southwest.

According to the second reportThe combined temperatures in June, July, and August were 0.41 degrees Fahrenheit (0.23 degrees Celsius) warmer than all previous summers. At another NASA conference last month dedicated to the planet’s extreme climate, scientists approvedThis year’s July was the hottest July on record, with the five hottest Julys in the last five years.

“Just look around and you’ll see what happens,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said during the conference. “There was record flooding in Vermont. There are record temperatures in Phoenix and Miami. Much of the country is covered in wildfire smoke, and of course we are watching in real time the disaster that is occurring with the wildfires in Hawaii.” Scientists say July’s heat is the deadliest wildfire season in both Canada and Hawaii, as well as the Mediterranean Sea. He said it directly contributed to heavy rains and flash floods in , especially in Greece and Italy.

They attribute the record heat in part to El Niño, which occurs about every two to seven years when winds over the Pacific Ocean that normally blow westward along the equator from South America to Asia break their routine and drift eastward and into Asia. West coast of the USA. As a result, Canada and the USA are experiencing much warmer weather than normal conditions.

“Extremely high sea surface temperatures, caused in part by the return of El Niño, were largely responsible for record heat in the summer,” he said in a statement. Josh Willis is a climatologist and oceanographer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. His team predicts that the biggest impact of this climate will occur between February and April next year.

But as climate scientist and GISS director Gavin Schmidt explained at the July conference, natural weather patterns like El Niño contribute little to climate change compared to human activities that cause global warming. According to the agency, El Niño in particular will lead to a temporary increase in temperatures of about 0.1 degrees Celsius. Global warming observed so far exceeds this amount

“Without these human contributions to climate change, we would not see anything like the temperatures we see now,” he said.

The new analysis by Willis and his team at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York comes just a day after another group of scientists warned that human activities were pushing Earth beyond the safe operating zone. The team found that six of the global environment’s nine so-called planetary boundaries, which measure how far humans have strayed from the pre-industrial world, have been breached.

NASA’s latest update comes on the heels of another report from the World Meteorological Organization that said countries were not on track to meet long-term goals previously agreed upon in the Paris Agreement to limit global warming.

Heat waves are becoming more common and more severe; Scientists expect this trend to continue in the coming years, but this year also shows that they are happening at unexpected times. For example, in early September, an unusually late three-day heat wave in New York City broke records after temperatures soared 20 degrees above normal.

“Unfortunately, climate change is happening. “What we said would happen will happen,” Schmidt said in a recent statement. “If we continue to release carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the situation will get worse.”