After a month of record temperatures in September, 2023 is almost certain to be the hottest year on record worldwide, according to a report by the US National Geological Survey published on Friday, as quoted by AFP.

“There is a greater than 99% probability that 2023 will be the warmest year on record,” the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said.

This prediction comes less than two months before COP28 in Dubai, where the fate of fossil fuels, the main culprits of global warming, will be at the center of the debate.

NOAA bases its calculations on data recorded from 2023 through September and simulations of possible scenarios based on existing records from 1975 to the present.

In early September, the European Copernicus Observatory also predicted that 2023 is likely to be the warmest year on record.

The warmest month is September

September 2023 was the warmest in 174 years of global records, NOAA confirmed. Copernicus already reported this record in early October.

“September 2023 marked the fourth consecutive month with record temperatures,” said Sarah Kapnick, NOAA’s chief scientist. “This was not only the warmest September on record, but it was by far the warmest month” in all the agency’s records, she said.

“That is, September 2023 was warmer than the average July of 2001-2010,” she added.

According to the American agency, in September the global temperature was 1.44°C higher than the average of the 20th century. This was 0.46°C above the previous September record set in 2020.

According to NOAA data, Africa, Europe and the Americas had their warmest September on record, Asia had its second warmest, and Oceania had its third warmest.

Record ocean temperatures

At the poles, Antarctica had the warmest September on record, and the Arctic had the second warmest. They are losing ice: In September, ice levels in Antarctica reached a record low for the season.

And for the sixth month in a row, record monthly water temperatures have been recorded in the World Ocean.

In recent years, the world has experienced extreme weather events, the intensity and frequency of which have increased due to climate change caused by anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases.

This year, Canada had a record forest fire season, burning 14 million hectares, roughly the size of Greece.

And the heat waves that hit parts of the United States and Europe this summer would have been “virtually impossible” without climate change, the World Weather Attribution Network explained in July.

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• Last month was the second warmest September in Romania. Temperatures were also much warmer than some past summer months