Climatology

Climate change is effectively reducing the year's seasons to two, according to the head of the Greek Meteorological Society.

"We have observed the expansion of summer into the fall, while winter - especially the winter of 2023 - is showing higher temperatures, mainly because of climate change," Panagiotis Nastos told the Athens-Macedonian News Agency.

In 2023, the world's oceans took up an enormous amount of excess heat, enough to "boil away billions of Olympic-sized swimming pools," according to an annual report published Thursday.

Following the El Nino phenomenon that caused sweltering heat and record high temperatures globally, climate scientist Levent Kurnaz has warned of an even hotter summer in 2024 as the sun is reaching the peak of its activity, known as "solar maximum."

The Academy of Athens on Monday presented an advanced new system for monitoring the impact of climate change on the natural environment and monuments of the sacred site of Delos, listed by UNESCO among the world's 13 most vulnerable sites to extreme weather phenomena.

In a stunning anomaly, October 2023 has been declared the hottest October on record, according to the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S). The month surpassed the previous temperature record set in October 2019 by a remarkable margin, with an average surface air temperature of 15.3°C—0.85°C above the 1991-2020 October average and 0.4°C higher than October 2019.

As they further state, it could threaten the lives of up to six billion people by the end of the century.
In the study "Climate State Report 2023: Entering Unexplored Territory", published in the journal Bioscience, specific climate events this year are pointed out.

A view of the Madeira River amid the drought in Porto Velho in the state of Rondonia, Brazil. With a heatwave in the southern hemisphere and record ocean temperatures, the ominous signs of climate change continue. This year, the Earth's surface registered the hottest temperature in history, exceeding centuries-old records in numerous regions.

In the face of the recently rising temperatures, encouraging local governments to paint buildings white as a defense against the scorching heat could be a remedy, an expert has put forth.

This is why UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said that "climate change is out of control".
"If we persist in delaying the key measures that are needed, I think we are entering a catastrophic situation, as shown by the last two temperature records," Guterres said, referring to the world temperature records broken on Monday and Tuesday.

The average global temperature hit a new high on Monday, July 3, surpassing the planet-wide average of 17 degrees Celsius for the first time, the BBC reported on Wednesday.

US researchers said the new record is the highest since systematic records of daily temperatures have been kept since the late 19th century.