2023 Set to Be Hottest Year on Record as Global Warming Nears 1.5°C Threshold

Scientists propose new metric to measure current level of global warming, amid concerns over lack of consensus on when 1.5°C level has been reached.

The World Meteorological Organization announced that 2023 is 'virtually certain' to be the hottest year in recorded history, with an average temperature about 1.4 degrees Celsius above the global average preindustrial temperature.
The past nine years have been the warmest nine in 174 years of recorded scientific observations, with previous single-year records set in 2020 and 2016.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects that there is at least a 50% chance that long-term global warming will overshoot 1.5 °C in the next decade, even with ambitious emissions cuts.
The Paris climate agreement does not have a formally agreed way of defining the present level of global warming, leading to potential confusion and delay in climate action.
Researchers propose a new indicator — the 20-year average temperature rise centred around the current year — to measure the current level of global warming.