Climate change accelerates: 2023 set multiple new records for drought, with nearly 8% of land area severely affected

Nearly 8 per cent of the global land area was under extreme drought in July 2023, setting a new record, according to the State of the Climate in 2023 report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). This surpasses the previous high of 6.2 percent set just a year earlier in July 2022.

Globally, 29.7 per cent of land experienced moderate or worse categories of drought in 2023 — another record-breaking figure. In addition, greenhouse gas concentrations, global temperature across land and ocean, global sea level and ocean heat content all set new records in 2023.

“This report documents and shares a startling, but well-established picture: We are experiencing a warming world as I speak and the indicators and impacts are seen throughout the planet. The report is another signpost to current and future generations,” Derek Arndt, director at the National Centers for Environmental Information, NOAA, said in a statement.

Further, the annual global surface temperature was 0.55 to 0.60 of a degree Celsius above the 1991–2020 average, making 2023 the warmest year since records began in the mid-to-late 1800s.

The major greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide — continued to rise, reaching record levels in 2023 as well.

The global ocean heat content up to a depth of 2,000 metres continued to increase and reached new record highs in 2023. The global mean sea level reached 4 inches (over 10 centimetres) above the 1993 average, a record high for the 12th consecutive year.

Mexico reported its driest (and hottest) year since the start of its record in 1950. West Asia, Europe and South America scored high on the drought severity index, which measures longer-term meteorological drought. South America, for instance, experienced severe drought in the latter half of the year throughout Amazon basin, with Rio Negro in Manaus, Brazil, a major tributary of Amazon river, reaching its lowest level since records began in 1902.

The hot and prolonged dry conditions set conditions ripe for wildfires. Canada experienced its worst national wildfire season on record in 2023, where large-scale fires burned continually from May to September. The burned area was roughly 15 million hectares, which was more than double the previous record from 1989.

Greece, too, saw record wildfires. The total area burned in the country in 2023 was more than four times its long-term average, the report highlighted.

Australia experienced its driest three-month period in Australia in the 104-year record between August and October 2023. Millions of hectares of bushfires burned for weeks in the Northern Territory.

As for the poles, the Arctic saw its fourth-warmest year in 2023 in the 124-year record. Over half of the sites in the region saw the highest below-ground, permafrost temperatures on record. Thawing of permafrost does not just affect infrastructure; it can also affect the rate of greenhouse gas release to the atmosphere, potentially accelerating global warming.

The seasonal Arctic sea ice, which typically reached its minimum extent in September, was the fifth-smallest in the 45-year record.

In the south pole, new monthly mean record lows in sea ice extent and sea ice area were seen in eight months of the year. On February 21, 2023, Antarctic Sea ice extent and sea ice area reached all-time record lows, surpassing the previous record lows observed in February 2022.

The tropical cyclone activity was below average in 2023, with over 82 named tropical storms against the average of 87 observed in 1991–2020.

However, storms still set records around the globe, with over seven tropical cyclones reaching Category 5. Globally, the accumulated cyclone energy — a combined measure of the strength, frequency and duration of tropical storms and hurricanes —was above average in 2023.