Summer 2023 broke temperature records globally by a wide margin and these record-breaking temperatures continued into September, putting 2023 on track to be the hottest year ever. In Europe, which is warming faster than the global average, the situation is even worse – September temperatures were 2.51°C higher than the 1991-2020 average. Copernicus Climate Change Service (*C3S) Deputy Director Samantha Burgess joined a panel of experts in a Climate Now debate to discuss the implications of these temperatures and what the future holds.

Asked about the global surface air anomalies for September, the C3S deputy director noted that the analysis showed that September 2023 was not only the warmest September on record globally, but it was different by the largest margin from any other month of any year in the data record, going back to 1940.

“This makes me nervous about what is to come. When we combine all the data together, the global air temperature records, the global sea surface temperature records, the global sea ice records, all of these indications together really show us that our climate is changing at a very rapid pace and we have to adapt to the climate that we are facing right now,” Burgess said. “We can say with virtual certainty that 2023 will be the warmest year on record,” she added...climate.copernicus.eu