2023 was hottest year on record

Last year marked the Earth’s warmest year on record, making the last 10 years the 10 warmest years ever recorded. The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service confirmed that 2023 topped the previous high in 2016, reaching an average global temperature of 14.98 degrees Celsius—0.17 degrees above the previous record. The world’s oceans also hit a record high.

Exacerbated by El Niño weather patterns, last year’s heat wave resulted in extreme weather events throughout the globe, including wildlfires in Canada, Hawaii and southern Europe; coral bleaching in warm waters off the coast of Florida; and significant losses of sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctic. 

“The extremes we have observed over the last few months provide a dramatic testimony of how far we now are from the climate in which our civilization developed,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of Copernicus’ Climate Change Service, in a press release.

Read more from CNN.

For more on how last summer’s heat affected wildlife, members may log in and read the article in the November/December 2023 issue of The Wildlife Professional.