September 2023 was globally the hottest in measurement history, says the EU’s climate program Copernicus. The summer of 2023 was the fifth hottest in recorded history in Europe.
September 2023 was the warmest September in measurement history worldwide, according to the latest monthly report of the EU’s Copernicus program air temperature report. The average temperature near the earth’s surface in September was 16.38 degrees Celsius.
This is 0.93 degrees Celsius warmer than the average for the September months of 1991-2020. It is also 0.5 degrees Celsius warmer than the previous September heat record from 2020.
September was about 1.75 degrees Celsius warmer than Septembers between 1850 and 1900, which is the most commonly used pre-industrial comparison interval.
“I still have difficulty understanding how such a large increase can occur in one year compared to previous years”, a researcher specializing in the consequences of climate change at the Finnish Meteorological Institute Mika Rantanen comment on the report In the X message service.
Summer 2023 the 5th warmest in measurement history
It was last summer again Copernicus’ recent report twofold: June was hot and dry in Northern Europe, but colder than normal in Southern Europe. July and August were colder and wetter in Northern Europe than in the region in general, but in July extreme heat and drought hit Southern Europe and in August Southwestern Europe.
All in all, the summer in Europe was hot, but not the hottest. The average temperature for the summer of 2022 was just over 20 degrees Celsius, while now it was 19.23 degrees Celsius. With this reading, the summer of 2023 was the 5th warmest ever in Europe.
The dry summers and warm winters afflicting Southern Europe punish, for example, the glaciers of the Alps. Like European glaciers in general, the glaciers of the Alps are located lower than the glaciers of other continents and are thus particularly vulnerable when the climate warms.
According to glaciologists, European glaciers lost a third of their mass between 2000 and 2020.
A couple of meters left from Mont Blanc
The signs of a warming and drying Europe may be shown by the subsidence of the mountains. For example, the Mont Blanc mountain located in the Alps near the border between Italy and France has lost a couple of meters in height in two years.
In 2021, the height of Mont Blanc was approximately 4,807.8 meters. Now, based on the measurements made in September, the peak of Mont Blanc, consisting of ice and snow, was at 4,805.5 meters.
Lead surveyor of the Mont Blanc surveying team Jean des Garets estimates that the drop in height could be due to the region’s dry summers. However, Garets points out that the peak may be “much higher” again in two years.
The variation in the height of the peak of Mont Blanc is a long-known phenomenon. The highest result in the measurement history, which began in 2001, is from 2001, when the peak was at 4,810.9 meters. The height of the peak can vary between two years by up to five meters, land surveyor Garets tells AFP.
Although the melting of the European glaciers has spoken to scientists, the changes in the height of Mont Blanc should not draw “emergency conclusions” related to the climate, says a member of the measurement team Denis Borel.
– Now it is the responsibility of climate scientists, glaciologists and other scientists to put all the data we have collected to use and develop theories that could explain the changes, says leading land surveyor Garets.