Representational Image
Guwahati, May 15: As the world experiences soaring temperatures and heatwaves become the new normal, more and more evidence is confirming that 2023 was one of the hottest years on record, and 2024 is on a similar path.
A new study from the University of Cambridge has found that 2023 was the hottest summer in the Northern Hemisphere in not just a century but in the past two thousand years.
“When you look at the long sweep of history, you can see just how dramatic recent global warming is. 2023 was an exceptionally hot year, and this trend will continue unless we reduce greenhouse gas emissions dramatically,” said Professor Ulf Büntgen from Cambridge’s Department of Geography.
Meanwhile, findings published in the journal Nature highlight that 2023 was the hottest year globally since records began in 1850. Human-caused climate change pushed northern summer highs beyond anything seen in two millennia.
Utilising tree-ring data from various sites across the northern hemisphere, scientists have reconstructed global temperatures dating back to the first century AD.Their findings reveal that 2023 surpassed even the warmest northern hemisphere summer during that period, potentially reaching a staggering 1.19°C higher.
With the exacerbation of climate change by phenomena like El Niño, 2024 is poised to break temperature records once more. Recent weeks have seen intense heatwaves ravage numerous Asian nations, with Myanmar hitting its highest-ever April temperature at 48.2°C and parts of Delhi, India, sweltering at 50°C.
