Copernicus Climate Change Service, which is part of the EU’s Earth observation program, released on Tuesday the  Global Climate Highlights report for 2023, containing a general summary of last year’s most relevant climate events.

According to Copernicus, 2023 was 1,48°C hotter than the pre industrial level, very close to the aspiration target of keeping temperature rise below the 1,50C limit set in the Paris Agreement.

The global average temperature was close to 150C, making “2023 the warmest calendar year in global temperature data records going back to 1850.”  The new level was 0,170C higher than the previous record set in 2016. The increase was driven “by human-caused climate change and boosted by the natural El Niño weather event”, as stated by climate experts from the University of Reading.

Data collected by Copernicus also showed that all days were more than 1°C warmer than the pre industrial level, almost 50% of days were over 1.5°C warmer while, for the first time ever, the 2°C level has been exceeded on two occasions.

In Europe, last year was the second warmest, 0.17°C cooler than 2020 which remains the record holder. European winter and autumn were also the second warmest while the summer was the fifth warmest on record.

In a separate forecast, the Met Office predicts that 2024 will also be a record-breaking year as the El Niño event is growing. The average global temperature is estimated to be as high as 1,58°C above the preindustrial period this year.

El Niño is expected by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) to last at least until April 2024 “influencing weather and contributing to a further spike in global temperatures.”