Heat records continue to be set, as like its cousin summer months, September was the hottest the month has ever been on record, setting 2023 up to be the hottest year ever.
In September, the average temperature was 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit above the 1911-2020 average for what is typically seen in the month, according to the European Climate Agency.
This marked the warmest margin above average for a month in the 83 years that the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Climate Change Service has recorded temperatures.
The director of the agency, Carlo Buontempo, spoke with NPR about the numbers, saying that it was “mind-blowing.”
“Never seen anything like that in any month in our records,” Buontempo said.
Both July and August had hotter raw temperatures because they are usually warmer months, but September had the biggest anomaly.
“This month was, in my professional opinion as a climate scientist - absolutely gobsmackingly bananas,” Zeke Hausfather, an experienced researcher, wrote on social media.
Copernicus calculated that the average temperature for September was 61.48 degrees Fahrenheit, smashing the previous record set in 2020 by 0.9 degrees.
According to meteorologists and scientists, that is a huge margin.
“The unprecedented temperatures for the time of year observed in September - following a record summer - have broken records by an extraordinary amount,” Dr. Samantha Burgess, the Deputy Director of Copernicus, shared with the BBC.
The hot temperatures were felt around the globe but were mainly driven by the persistent warmth of the world’s oceans, which haven’t cooled off as much in September as they typically do, Buontempo told NPR.
So far, Earth is on track to have the hottest year on record, surpassing pre-industrial averages by 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit, Burgess shared.
Like many, Pope Francis recently addressed the growing concerns around climate change, sharing that the Earth was at a “breaking point.”
The pope shared his thoughts in a new document, called Laudate Deum (Praise God), and comes before next month’s COP28 conference. In the document, he said that a transition from fossil fuels to clean and renewable energy was not moving quickly enough.
“The world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point,” he said. “It is indubitable that the impact of climate change will increasingly prejudice the lives and families of many persons.”
Francis called for drastic action to be taken at the upcoming climate conference, and others like Burgess agreed.
“Two months out from COP28, the sense of urgency for ambitious climate action has never been more critical,” Burgess said.