Environment: Global temperature expected to reach 1.4C in 2023 as world struggles to limit it to 1.5C

Digital Desk: As the year 2023 nears, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) issued a grim warning: the world is on track to have the warmest year on record.

With global temperatures rising to around 1.4 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels, the World Meteorological Organization's preliminary State of the Global Climate report highlights an alarming pattern of accelerating climate change.

The gravity of this temperature rise cannot be emphasised. It outperforms the previous record established in 2016, indicating a "deafening cacophony" of broken climate records.

This increase in global warming puts more strain on ongoing deliberations at the United Nations annual climate meeting, COP28, which began on Thursday in Dubai. To mitigate the severe implications of climate change, world leaders are wrestling with the vital issue of phase-out of fossil fuels.

WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas emphasised the severity of the situation, adding that greenhouse gas concentrations, global temperatures, sea level rise, and Antarctic sea ice depletion have all reached unprecedented highs.

However, the present findings do not mean that the world has crossed the long-term warming barrier of 1.5 degrees Celsius, which scientists see as the upper limit for avoiding catastrophic climate impacts under the 2015 Paris Agreement. Such elevated temperatures would have to be sustained for a longer amount of time to surpass this threshold.

Nonetheless, the impacts of a single year at 1.4 degrees Celsius have been substantial, and they serve as a foreshadowing of what could become a permanent situation if strong action is not taken. Antarctic sea ice has shrunk to its smallest winter maximum extent ever recorded, reducing by an area the size of certain countries.

In just two years, glaciers in Switzerland have lost around 10% of their volume. Wildfires have consumed an area comparable to 5% of Canada's forests, setting a new and sad record.

These climatic changes are being related to the continued use of fossil fuels and the formation of the El Nio climate trend in the Eastern Pacific. 

Scientists warn that the situation might worsen as El Nio's impacts strengthen in the coming winter, potentially leading to even higher temperatures in 2024.