Climate change: Met Office forecasts 2023 will be hotter than 2022
The Met Office has forecast that 2023 will be warmer than this year, and one of the hottest years on record.
Predictions suggest it will be the 10th year in a row the global temperature is at least 1C above average.
The Met Office said that a cooling effect – known as La Nina – will likely end after being in place for three years – part of a natural weather cycle.
Science shows that climate change is pushing up the global temperature.
World leaders have promised to cut emissions to keep temperature rise below 1.5C to avoid the worst effects of climate change.
Temperatures in 2023 are forecast to be between 1.08C and 1.32C above the pre-industrial average.
The globe has already warmed by around 1.1C compared to the period before the Industrial Revolution in 1750-1900 when humans began burning large amounts of fossil fuels.
2016 was the warmest year since records began in 1850, with the weather phenomenon known as El Niño boosting global temperatures.
The past three years have been affected by a weather pattern called La Niña – when cooler-than-average sea temperatures in the Pacific lowered the average global temperature.
But with that weather effect now predicted to end, it will bring warmer conditions in parts of the Pacific and lead to the global temperature being warmer than in 2022.
