Washington, D.C.– NASA said in a news release last week that their latest climate change analysis has determined that 2023 was the warmest year on record for Earth’s average surface temperature.
According to the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York, part of NASA, last year’s global temperatures soared about 2.1 degrees Fahrenheit (1.2 degrees Celsius) above the 1951-1980 average.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson expressed grave concerns about the climate crisis, citing extreme heat, wildfires, and rising sea levels as evidence of a rapidly changing Earth. He emphasized the ongoing efforts under President Biden’s administration to mitigate climate risks and enhance community resilience. NASA’s role in these efforts is pivotal, utilizing its unique vantage point in space to provide crucial climate data.
The data from 2023 paints a dire picture, with hundreds of millions worldwide facing extreme heat. Each month from June to December set new records for global temperatures. July 2023 marked the hottest month ever recorded, with Earth’s temperature approximately 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit (1.4 degrees Celsius) warmer than the late 19th-century average, the beginning of modern record-keeping.
Gavin Schmidt, the director of GISS, highlighted the unprecedented nature of this warming, primarily driven by fossil fuel emissions. The resulting impacts are evident in more frequent and intense heatwaves, heavy rainfall, and coastal flooding.
NASA’s climate change analysis also considers other climatic factors like El Niño, aerosols, pollution, and volcanic activity. The recent shift from La Niña to El Niño in May 2023 is particularly notable. El Niño tends to correlate with hotter years, but the record temperatures in 2023’s latter half preceded the peak of the current El Niño event.
NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio
Schmidt warns that as long as greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, global warming will continue and temperature records will keep breaking. Alarmingly, greenhouse gas emissions hit a new high in the past year.
NASA’s temperature record is meticulously assembled using data from thousands of meteorological stations and sea surface temperature measurements. This comprehensive approach accounts for varying station spacing and urban heating effects.
NASA said in the release that independent analyses by NOAA and the Hadley Centre corroborate NASA’s findings, confirming 2023 as the hottest year since modern records began. Despite slight methodological differences, these records align closely, underscoring the ongoing long-term warming trend.
NASA’s complete dataset of global surface temperatures and the detailed methodology of their analysis through 2023 are publicly available from GISS. This NASA laboratory, managed by the Earth Sciences Division of the Goddard Space Flight Center and affiliated with Columbia University, remains at the forefront of climate research and monitoring.
