2023 was the hottest year ever recorded worldwide
(CNS): Following predictions over the last few months that 2023 would be the world’s hottest year ever recorded after two decades of escalating temperatures, scientists say that last year may have been the warmest in 125,000 years. While the official data for last month has not been calculated, the results were already locked in by mid-December, and it would have been virtually impossible for that month to be cold enough to make a difference. The Copernicus Climate Change Service, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are expected to confirm the details in the next few weeks.
As we await the full report for the weather and temperatures in Cayman throughout 2023, it is very likely that it was one of, if not the, warmest year on record here, too, as several months this year exceeded recorded annual averages, in some cases by a significant margin. But the main challenges that lie ahead for Cayman will be fuelled by the ocean surface temperatures, as these islands are susceptible to rising seas.
According to the records, global ocean temperatures set new highs for months in a row last year, causing widespread coral bleaching. At one point in July, the ocean temperature in the Florida Keys reached 101°F, which may have been a world record.
When he was premier and minister for sustainability, Wayne Panton spearheaded plans to begin mitigating and future-proofing the Cayman Islands from the impending rise in sea level, as set out in the comprehensive Climate Change Policy, which went through public consultation last year. The document was set to go before Cabinet in November, but following the coup in which Panton was ousted, the document did not make it before the government’s inner circle, and none of the proposed policy plans have been specifically budgeted for over the next 24 months.
Posting on social media at the time about the policy going before his colleagues, Panton said it had been shaped by the contributions made by the public as well as the technical experts. He said the consultation had “helped our team refine the draft policy and provided a lot of valuable ideas for the implementation plan”. He noted that people had shown how concerned they were about climate change impacts and that they “want our islands to be prepared for the risks we are facing”.
Since 2014, scientists have recorded the ten warmest years since records began, according to NASA and NOAA. The year 2016, which included the influence of a strong El Niño, was the warmest year on record until 2020 and now 2023.
El Niño also influenced the temperatures last year, but by November, NOAA reported that those eleven months had seen surface temperature reach 2.07°F (1.15°C) above the 1901-2000 average of 57.2°F (14.0°C). Once December’s temperatures are calculated, that increase for this year is expected to be even greater. Scientists the world over are now repeatedly warning that global temperatures will continue to increase as a result of heat-trapping emissions and human development.
Experts are already predicting that 2024 could be even hotter, fueled by an even stronger El Niño. The World Meteorological Organization now estimates that 2023 until the end of 2027 will almost certainly be the warmest five-year period ever recorded.
In a press release last month, the UK Met Office said the outlook for global temperatures in 2024 indicates it will be another record-breaker boosted by the current El Niño. However, the Met Office’s Prof Adam Scaife noted, “The main driver for record-breaking temperatures is the ongoing human-induced warming since the start of the Industrial Revolution.”
The Met Office said there is a reasonable chance of a year temporarily exceeding 1.5°C of global warming, which would undermine hopes of keeping the planet’s increase in temperature under that target.
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Category: Science & Nature, Weather
And, CUC continues to burn fossil fuel and deny the nation the ability to effectively utilize the abundance of solar and other alternatives. As a small island nation we do nothing to help or prepare but we will be first in line for handouts when the inevitable happens. Profit before environment apparently.
Bravo CUC for looking after Cayman’s interests.
Not true; The current official highest registered air temperature on Earth is 56.7 °C (134.1 °F), recorded on 10 July 1913 at Furnace Creek Ranch, in Death Valley.
CNS: What is not true? The factual sentence which you have cut and pasted from somewhere without understanding it does not negate the fact that the AVERAGE global temperature is rising.
It does my head in every time: Climatologists, who spend decades studying the subject, have all concluded that the Earth is warming dangerously, then someone spends 30 seconds on Google and thinks they’ve disproved this.
Here’s a primer on climate change for you.
The story says “HOTTEST YEAR EVER RECORDED”. That is based on the overall average for the year period. Average does not mean the hottest day ever recorded occurred – that is a moment in time snapshot. This average is an indication of a (worrying) trend of overall upwards movement in temperature.
There will be hotter and colder days during an AVERAGE year period. And sometimes they may be the hottest or coldest EVER, but the concern here is the overall upward trend in temperature overall.
Of course, the AVERAGE for 2024 may go down, but continuing upwards trends should be a concern for all!
Never been a better time to buy a beachfront property designed with no mitigation features!
Why are we developing land that in our lifetime will be underwater? I guess, because there are those stupid enough to buy it.
Insatiable thirst for wealth and societal status
Let me check the radar, oh, never mind.
And in other news, this feels like the coolest winter Cayman has had in 20 years.
CNS: According to the CI National Weather Service, the average temperature for Sep-Oct-Nov (the most recent data posted) was 1.3C above the climatological average. See here.
You could also read this if you actually want to understand: What’s the Difference Between Weather and Climate? – NOAA
wwell done cns….nothing cool about this winter…was 91 on xmas day
Erratic weather is definitely happening more often. Part of the whatever is happening with Earth’s Climate.
Cooler than normal weather in Florida as well.
I agree this is a big issue. But let’s be honest for a second: that climate policy falls miserably short of anything actionable or significant. It was a huge waste of time and money and doesn’t really do much. Reading it was a waste of time.
Like most government reports. They are done to give the illusion that the government cares.
Wake up Cayman, this island will turn into Venice in 25 years if we don’t start taking drastic steps now.
Cayman can do absolutely NOTHING to stop it.
CNS: Which is why we must prepare for it.
The sea level denial force is strong on this thread.
A very leftist comment. If someone is a skeptic you call them a denier. The whole climate change issue is still debatable or at least the outcome of it. I recall when man made Y2K was a hot topic, people were predicting ships sinking, aircraft coming down, nuclear power plant meltdowns etc, yet it passed with none of those disasters taking place.
CNS: Part of the Y2K panic was because there was an actual problem and no one, even very smart people, really knew what was going to happen. There was also a lot of air-headed nonsense on the left and the right (e.g. Jerry Falwell who thought it would trigger the End Times). The fact that nothing really bad did happen was at least in part due to the time and huge amounts of money thrown at the problem to fix it – a fact that is often overlooked.
Science denial from the right wing of politics is as reliable as the sunrise.
Einstein also ‘denied’ certain conventions and theorised different. Turns out he has been right on many of his theories. My point is that the left love words like ‘deniers’ when the outcome of climate changed is neither fixed in time or results fully known. If the right disagrees with the left they are called deniers.
CNS: Equating Einstein’s giant leaps of scientific understanding with climate change deniers is cute but no one with any sense is going to buy it. You’re also making this a left-right thing because that apparently suits your anti-left agenda but it ain’t necessarily so. For example, a decade ago (pre-Trump and pre-covid), I imagine that most “vaccine deniers” were on the left with all the “government-is-out-to-get-us” conspiracy theorists, a position now largely taken up by Trumpers. So it goes.
The reason why climate denying is concentrated on the right is because the people funding the propaganda to discredit global warming are the uber-rich in the fossil fuel industry who have a direct line into right wing “think tanks” and right wing media. So it’s easily shovelled into handy and already willing minds.
“Pseudoscience depending for its “truth” on consensus is deeply hostile to challenge.” — Rael Jean Isaac
CNS: The scientific consensus is that the Earth is spherical. This is based on good science. However, there is a growing number of people who believe that it is flat and that science can prove this. Sometimes the consensus is right and the hostility to change is because the alternative views offered are bunk.
Rael Jean Isaac is not a climatologist or an expert in any related field. She is a sociologist and not qualified to comment on the findings of climate scientists or discredit peer-reviewed papers.
There was an actual problem that was there from the beginning. I was a programmer at the time and was a part of the fix, but it could have been fixed decades before.
CNS: Yes.
The sea level rise denier’s force is strong on this thread. Besides stringing that narrative is not conducive to selling real estate or investing in it.
Buy Brac Bluff land now, it’s selling fast, plus they chipping it down and shipping it to Grand by 4 Barge loads a week. what a shame ?
I don’t know. Is it a shame?
If I was investing billions in real estate in Cayman, one thing I definitely would not have done or do, is to have the planets top climatologists give me any advice whatsoever on what may happen to sea levels in cayman. Why would I even think about that risk. Of course I wouldn’t. I’d just invest the billions and see what happens.
NASA figures 10-12 inches by 2050, and as much as a yard higher by 2100. Climate Change brings much bigger problems before then: water, air, food, war.