Watch as record temperatures and climate events of 2023 discussed by EU scientists

Watch as EU’s Copernicus scientists hold a news conference on Tuesday 9 January to discuss global climate highlights of 2023.

In December, scientists said they expected the year to be the warmest on record, as global mean temperature for the first 11 months of the year hit the highest level.

The temperature for the January-November period was 0.13C higher than the average for the same period in 2016, currently the warmest calendar year on record, the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said.

November 2023 was the warmest November on record globally, with an average surface air temperature of 14.22C, 0.85C above the 1991-2020 average for November and 0.32C above the previous warmest November in 2020.

“The extraordinary global November temperatures, including two days warmer than 2C above preindustrial, mean that 2023 is the warmest year in recorded history,” deputy director of C3S, Samantha Burgess, said in a statement at the time.