World Meteorological Organization Says 2023 Will Easily Break Climate Records

December 29, 2023 by

With a few days left to go until next year, it can be said that 2023 has officially shattered climate records.

A World Meteorological Organization provisional State of the Global Climate report confirmed that 2023 is set to be the warmest year on record. The WMO report was released at the end of November, but with only days left in a relatively warm December, the record is virtually assured.

WMO Data until the end of October showed that the year was about 1.4 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial 1850-1900 baseline. The difference between 2023 and 2016 and 2020, which were previously considered the warmest years, is such that the final two months are very unlikely to affect 2023’s ranking.

“It’s looking virtually certain at this point that 2023 will be the hottest year on record,” Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at Berkeley Earth, a non-profit that analyzes climate trends, told NPR in an article out on Thursday.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists say there’s a 99%-plus chance 2023 will have the hottest recorded global average temperature, according to NPR.

“The past nine years, 2015 to 2023, were the warmest on record,” the WMO report states. “The warming El Niño event, which emerged during the Northern Hemisphere spring of 2023 and developed rapidly during summer, is likely to further fuel the heat in 2024 because El Niño typically has the greatest impact on global temperatures after it peaks.”

Architecture and Engineering

Architecture and engineering professionals “are well-positioned to use climate projection data to inform design and provide clients with climate adaptive solutions,” asserts a new report from the University of Minnesota’s Climate Adaptation Partnership.

The partnership and HGA, a national interdisciplinary design firm, conducted a study to understand current A&E practices related to: use of climate projection data; challenges encountered accessing, understanding and applying the data to inform design; and opportunities to advance climate resilience services and expertise in the A&E industry.

The A&E industry relies on historical weather data for design decisions because climate projection data are not available in the formats used by A&E workflows.

Energy modelers, for example, most often use the Typical Meteorological Year dataset from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, which has been considered sufficient for establishing “climate normal,” but it is based on past median weather conditions that are sometimes more than three decades old, according to the report.

“Our changing climate makes ‘climate normals’ less useful for designers, poorly reflecting the range, frequency, and intensity of potential future weather conditions that a building will need to withstand during its lifespan,” the report states.

California Resilience Grant

A new Regional Resilience Grant Program aims to protect California communities from climate impacts like wildfire, drought, sea level rise and extreme heat with a $21.7 million funding initiative.

The initiative is part of the inaugural round of California’s Regional Resilience Grant, which is in turn part of the Integrated Climate Adaptation and Resiliency Program, an article on Insurance Journal this week reports.

The grant aims to fortify climate change resilience at a regional level by supporting 16 new regional partnerships. The Regional Resilience Grant focuses on addressing a range of climate-related challenges, including wildfires, rising sea levels, droughts, floods and extreme heat events.

The awards include $6.2 million in planning grants to 10 regional partnerships engaging communities in studying and determining how to address climate risks. There are $15.5 million grants going to six regional partnerships to fund physical projects and programs to protect communities from climate change impacts.

Separately, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget funds 15 projects to make state roadways more resilient to changing weather patterns.

Projects funded by this budget investment will:

  • Provide a second route for emergency evacuations in Paradise, which is still struggling to rebuild after the deadliest wildfire in California history in 2018, in the event of a natural disaster.
  • Elevate a road in the Coachella Valley to allow access to a hospital and other resources during floods and sandstorms.
  • Fortify rail-lines along California’s coast to ensure the safety of passengers and cargo.

Weather Control

Human weather control is possible, though limited. However, the big question is should it be deployed to stop climate change? That question was explored in detail this week in an article from Salon.

The article features experts who say the question is not whether controlling weather is possible, but how significantly and how precisely people can wield this influence. Such controls are often thought impossible, or are poorly understood.

“I became interested in cloud seeding after learning that the tiny, rural community of Mt. Shasta, Calif., near where I grew up, attempted to pass a local ordinance to prevent an electrical utility from cloud seeding,” Arizona State University law professor Karen Bradshaw wrote in an email to Salon.

Weather control raises questions about what is scientifically possible, and ethical. Examples in the Salon article include Project Stormfury, an attempt by the U.S. government to weaken tropical cyclones by flying planes into them and sprinkling them with silver iodide. It wasn’t effective.

A weather modification project in North Vietnam and Laos during the 1960s American invasion called Operation Popeye featured more than 50 cloud seeding experiments designed to lengthen the monsoon season. The U.S. Department of Defense deemed the results “outstandingly successful,” with 82% of the seeded clouds producing rain within a brief period, according to the Salon article.

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