2023: the twelve hottest topics

1. La Niña is over – it gets even warmer

It was already clear in 2022: The long-term warming of the atmosphere manifests itself more and more violently even in the short-term weather. With emissions and CO2 levels in the atmosphere at a new high, temperatures climbed again in 2022, as they had in the previous eight years – to an average of 1.15 degrees Celsius above the long-term global average and new all-time highs in some regions. And all this after three years marked by an exceptionally long „La Niña“ phenomenon – the temperature anomaly in the Pacific Ocean that normally provides for global cooling. Meteorologists now expect this cooling trend to end in 2023 – and, in all probability, the start of an „El Niño“ period that could drive global temperatures even higher.