A few months ago, the COP28 climate summit (year 2023) was held in Dubai and for the first time much emphasis was placed on the need to replace fossil fuels, the main cause of global warming, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Undoubtedly, the year 2023 was the year with the highest temperatures in the history of the world. On land, the average temperature was 0.13°C warmer than the previous record, corresponding to the year 2016, and in the oceans, the temperature oscillated at 20.96°C.
Two important factors are the cause of the high temperatures in the various countries of the world, in some the temperature has increased more than in others. Factor number 1 is climate change, or the climate crisis that has been so often mentioned, and factor 2 is the El Niño phenomenon.
Experts from meteorological and emergency institutes around the world advise the authorities of nations to be attentive, to take precautions to what temperature increases may cause, and to work on strategies to mitigate the possible effects, the population is also facing the reality of a climatic change that requires constant adaptation.
Hot year for Costa Rica
Climate alarms were lit in Costa Rica after the announcement of the National Meteorological Institute (IMN), which revealed that the first months of 2024 promise to be hot, with temperatures exceeding the highest average by up to 2 degrees Celsius.
Meteorologists’ warnings are not only focused on high temperatures but also on how this thermal increase will affect daily life in the country.
According to the INM, the North and Central Pacific region will be the most affected by this phenomenon.
Before the news from the Costa Rican Meteorological Institute, the National Emergency Commission (CNE) had declared a yellow alert in the Central American country last October 18, in anticipation of these droughts that could be extended in the coming months – until April 2024 – due to the El Niño phenomenon.
What are global agencies saying?
The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported that September 2023 was the warmest month in 174 years of global records. It is worth noting that in October the European Copernicus Observatory confirmed the same record.
The U.S. office published a report in which it predicts that the 2023-2024 season could be the hottest year ever recorded worldwide, with a probability of over 99%.
According to NASA data, the impact of global warming caused a large number of heat warnings, leading to hundreds of illnesses and deaths due to high temperatures.
Scientists say that, possibly in the next few years, it is very likely that the heat record will be broken again. Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies research center, once said of 2023, “What we’re seeing here is anomalous and above the expected trend. We anticipate that 2023 will not only be exceptionally warm, but 2024 will be even warmer.”
Global impacts on both people and the environment
Another study led by NASA assured that, if global temperatures continue to rise and reach 3.6 degrees above pre-industrial levels, people around the world could face multiple impacts on their health.
He also emphasized that other effects are generated due to the global emergency, which is why it was alert to the nations of the world, for example in the case of Forest fires could cause material damage and loss of life; floods could displace people from their homes and droughts could damage crops.
In 2023, climate-related phenomena emerged: fires in Greece and Canada, increased melting of the polar ice caps, droughts in regions of Europe, Asia, and Africa, and floods in four continents, including Europe and Asia.
Scientists pointed out that in the nine consecutive months between March and October last year, the highest temperatures ever seen in the oceans in those specific periods occurred.
Finally, as in previous years, there has been talk of poles at risk, the North and South Poles presented an evident minimum amount of ice and snow on their surface.
The U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), which keeps the official record, published that, when the Austral summer ended in Antarctica, ice levels were alarmingly low and, at the end of the winter in September, when they were expected to have recovered, the ice-covered area was 16.96 million square kilometers, the lowest since the Arctic, with the warmest summer ever recorded: 6.4°C (41.4°F). Both ice caps suffered the effects of what is known as “polar amplification”: they warm faster than lower latitudes, as a result of melting ice sheets and warming oceans.
