OCTOBER was the hottest on record globally, 1.7°C (3.1°F) warmer than the pre-industrial average for the month, according to figures published today by the European Union’s climate agency.

Last month was a massive 0.4°C (0.7°F) warmer than the previous record for the month, set in 2019, which surprised even Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, which publishes monthly bulletins of global surface air and sea temperatures, among other data.

Ms Burgess said: “The amount that we’re smashing records by is shocking.”

After the cumulative warming of the past several months, it’s virtually guaranteed that 2023 will be the hottest year on record, according to Copernicus.

A warmer planet means more extreme and intense weather events such as severe drought or hurricanes that hold more water, said Professor Peter Schlosser, vice-president and vice-provost of the global futures laboratory at Arizona State University. 

“This is a clear sign that we are going into a climate regime that will have more impact on more people,” he said.

“We better take this warning that we actually should have taken 50 years ago or more and draw the right conclusions.”

Ms Burgess said that this year has been so exceptionally hot in part because oceans have been warming, which means they are doing less to counteract global warming than in the past. 

Prof Schlosser warned that the world should expect more records to be broken as a result of that warming, but the question is whether they will come in smaller steps in the future. 

The Earth is already exceeding 1.5°C (2.7°F) of warming since pre-industrial times, which was the cap sought by the Paris Agreement, and that the planet has not yet seen the full impact of that temperature increase, he added.