Climate change now poses an “existential threat” to life on Earth, an international group of climate scientists has said. According to them, the numerous temperature records and weather disasters occurring in 2023 indicate a crisis situation. The study was published in the scientific journal magazine Bioscience.
2023 is expected to be the hottest year in history. Some parts of the planet were affected by extreme heat waves, some by floods, and some by both.
The climate study looked at the latest data on the “vital signs” of 35 planets. This year, 20 of them reached record levels, according to scientists.
Copernicus, the European Union’s climate monitoring service, said the three summer months were the hottest period on record and possibly the hottest in about 120,000 years.
The report stated that many climate records were broken “by large margins” in 2023, especially the temperatures in the oceans, which absorb almost all of the extreme heat caused by man-made carbon emissions.
Potentially serious impacts include threats to marine life and coral reefs and an increase in the intensity of major tropical storms, according to the study.
Days with average global temperatures 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels will be rare before 2023, the report’s authors noted. As of mid-September this year, 38 such days had already been recorded.
Scientists emphasized that 3 to 6 billion people could find themselves “outside habitable zones” by the end of the century.
Previous scientists warned About the irreversible melting of ice in West Antarctica.