After a cooler start to 2023, four months have seen unprecedented global temperatures, with September being the hottest month ever recorded. But sweltering temperatures baking the globe on land and sea have been piling up month after month, year after year. September was in fact the 6th straight month with record global ocean temperatures, and the 49th straight September with temperatures higher than the 20th-century average; oh, and the 535th consecutive month with warmer-than-average temperatures.
This meteorological evolution saw the likelihood of 2023 becoming the warmest year on record jump from 46.8% at the end of July to a 99% “virtually certain” probability by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) standards.