The year 2023 has been confirmed as the warmest on record, driven by human-caused climate change and boosted by the natural El Niño weather event, writes BBC.

Last year was about 1.48C warmer than the long-term average before humans started burning large amounts of fossil fuels, the EU’s climate service says. Almost every day since July has seen a new global air temperature high for the time of year, BBC analysis shows. Sea surface temperatures have also smashed previous highs.

The Met Office reported last week that the UK experienced its second warmest year on record in 2023. These global records are bringing the world closer to breaching key international climate targets.

“What struck me was not just that [2023] was record-breaking, but the amount by which it broke previous records”, notes Andrew Dessler, a professor of atmospheric science at Texas A&M University.

The margin of some of these records - which you can see on the chart below - is “really astonishing”, Prof Dessler says, considering they are averages across the whole world.