99% Chance 2023 Will Be World’s Warmest Year on Record

By Paul Rusnak|November 29, 2023

Here’s a hot take for you: There is a greater than 99% chance 2023 will go down as the world’s warmest year on record. This is according to NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information Global Annual Temperature Outlook. The prediction should come to no surprise as headlines have told the story of extreme weather this past year.

The latest headline in fact reads that October 2023 registered as the warmest on record for the planet. The global climate record goes back 174 years, by the way. NOAA stats indicate the average global temperature for October was 2.41°F. above the 20th-century average of 57.1°F. In addition, for the seventh-consecutive month, global ocean surface temperature also set a record high. To top it all off, October marks the fifth month in a row of record-warm global temperatures and 536th-consecutive month with global temperatures above the 20th-century average.

Data like this confirms the climate is changing. It’s hard to argue otherwise. USDA recently released its updated plant hardiness zone map. It had been more than a decade since that happened. Most folks are now finding themselves in a completely different zone. “When compared to the 2012 map, the 2023 version reveals that about half of the country shifted to the next warmer half zone, and the other half of the country remained in the same half zone,” USDA notes. “That shift to the next warmer half zone means those areas warmed somewhere in the range of 0-5 degrees Fahrenheit; however, some locations experienced warming in the range of 0-5 degrees Fahrenheit without moving to another half zone.”

For growers, the new zones might take some getting used to. Acceptance is far from a a lock, at least based off multiple reader comments on the related article I posted a few weeks ago. Feel free to weigh in with your thoughts here or on that article.

Atlantic Hurricane Season Stats

The 2023 Atlantic hurricane season officially closes on Nov. 30. There are no indicators of storms on the near horizon as I write this. So, the numbers should hold. The 2023 campaign officially ranks fourth for most named storms in a season (20), according to NOAA. This exceeded long-range predictions influenced by the presence of El Niño, which normally suppresses tropical activity in the Atlantic. The record-warm Atlantic sea surface temperatures though helped offset the climate pattern and fuel more systems. Out of the 20 named storms, 7 turned into hurricanes. Three of those were major hurricanes. Hurricane Idalia was the only one to make landfall in the U.S.