The summer of 2023 was the hottest in 2,000 YEARS – and scientists say climate change is to blame

The summer of 2023 was the warmest in 2,000 years in the Northern Hemisphere, according to a new analysis from the University of Cambridge.

Humanity has not seen warmer weather since the early days of the Roman Empire and the birth of Jesus Christ, the latest research shows.

In total, last summer on land was 2.2°C warmer than the average temperature in the years between 1 AD. and 1890 AD. B.C., when the Industrial Revolution was in full swing, pumping enormous amounts of climate-warming greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

It was also almost 4°C hotter than the coldest summer in 536 AD. – when an ash cloud from a volcanic eruption is said to have lowered the temperature.

“If you look at the long history of history, you can see how dramatic recent global warming is,” says co-author Professor Ulf Büntgen from Cambridge’s Department of Geography.

The summer of 2023 was the warmest in 2,000 years in the Northern Hemisphere, according to a new analysis from the University of Cambridge. In photo, a man recoils as a fire burns in the village of Gennadi on the Greek island of Rhodes in the Aegean Sea, July 25, 2023

Although temperatures are an average for the Earth’s northern hemisphere, Britain’s summer last year was considered average by the Met Office and only the eighth warmest on record.

The years 2022 and 2018 were jointly the hottest summers in Britain.

Reliable weather data produced by scientific instruments only dates back to 1850, when the Industrial Revolution took off.

But by analyzing tree rings, scientists were able to calculate how hot the summers were based on the growth of the tree ring and the chemical composition of the wood.

Trees have narrower growth periods – creating narrower rings – during cold periods and wider rings during warm periods.

The Earth warmed during its hottest summer on record, as record heat in August capped a brutal, deadly three months in the Northern Hemisphere. In the photo, people in Istanbul jump into the sea to keep cool, August 22, 2023

For Britons, the new record may be hard to believe as the country was hit by cold air and rain for much of the summer, despite heatwaves in mainland Europe. Holidaymakers are pictured on the beach in Weymouth, Dorset, on July 31, 2023

The authors write that even when natural climate variations of about 0.5°C are taken into account, 2023 was still the hottest summer since the height of the Roman Empire.

The heat was due to a combination of record levels of greenhouse gases and the El Nino weather event, Professor Büntgen said.

“2023 was an exceptionally warm year and this trend will continue unless we dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” he said.

But the results, reported in the journal Nature, also show that efforts to limit the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels may already have been exceeded.

The researchers calculate that the 19th century temperature baseline, which was used as a benchmark to measure global warming, could be as much as several tenths of a degree Celsius colder than previously thought.

Based on this, the researchers calculated that conditions in the Northern Hemisphere summer of 2023 were 2.07°C warmer than average summer temperatures between 1850 and 1900, contrary to the currently accepted view that global warming is 1.4 °C is higher than in the 19th century. baseline.

The researchers say that while their results are valid for the Northern Hemisphere, excluding the tropics, it is difficult to obtain global averages for the same period because data for the Southern Hemisphere is sparse.

The Southern Hemisphere also responds differently to climate change because it is much more covered by sea than the Northern Hemisphere.