Official data shows last year was the hottest since records began in 1850. Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, said that looking further back, last year's temperatures "were probably higher than any period in at least the past 100,000 years."

Data released today by the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service confirmed earlier predictions that temperatures would peak in 2023. It also made worrying predictions for the new year, predicting that the world could soon pass a climate change tipping point.

2023 not only broke records, it shattered them, greatly surpassing the previous hottest year of 2016. But major changes on Earth could depend on temperature changes of a few tenths of a degree.

Since the Industrial Revolution, global temperatures have risen by an average of about 1.2 degrees Celsius due to greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels. That may not seem like a big change, but it was enough to cause deadly heat waves in Europe, North America and China last year that "are extremely rare or even impossible without human-caused warming," according to an international collaboration of researchers called WorldWeatherAttribution. This is just one example of many ways climate change is exacerbating global disasters.

The increase in global surface air temperature relative to the mean temperature of 1850-1900 (the designated pre-industrial reference period), based on multiple global temperature data sets, is shown as a five-year average since 1850 (left) and an annual average since 1967 (right). Image: C3S/ECMWF

"The extreme climate phenomena we have observed over the past few months are powerful evidence of how far we are now from the climate environment in which our civilization developed. This has profound implications for the Paris Agreement and all human endeavors," Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, said in a press release.

It turns out that temperatures in 2023 are actually 1.48 degrees Celsius warmer than in pre-industrial times. This is a very worrying jump in average global temperatures. In fact, the landmark Paris climate agreement requires almost all countries on the planet to work together to control global warming to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius, otherwise they will face a more serious climate catastrophe. This goal can quickly become out of reach.

According to the latest Copernicus forecasts, temperatures are "very likely" to be 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels in the 12 months to January or February 2024. The Met Office also predicts that 2024 will be hotter than last year.

Even so, hope for halting climate change is not lost. The goal of the Paris Agreement is to avoid a sustained rise in average temperatures above 1.5 degrees. The El Niño climate pattern emerging in 2023 combined with greenhouse gas emissions to make last year's temperatures particularly warm, but El Niño is expected to end later this year.

Humans themselves can also lower the thermostat by using clean energy and reducing pollution from heating the planet. Whether or not the world achieves global climate goals, every degree is different for our future prospects.