Image: American Meteorological Society
The Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society today published State of the Climate in 2023. The report, which is led by NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), summarizes observed trends in key climate variables and major climate-related events around the globe.
This year’s report documents another extraordinary year for Earth’s climate. Greenhouse gas concentrations reached a record high, and the global surface temperature also set a new record—climbing to approximately 1°F above the 1991–2020 average.
NCICS staff made several significant contributions to this year’s report.
Carl Schreck co-led the “Tropics” chapter of the report, as he has done for the past several years. Carl’s chapter examines the state of the tropical ocean and atmosphere, with sections on El Niño–Southern Oscillation and other patterns of variability, the global monsoon, tropical cyclone activity across the major ocean basins, and more. NCICS’s John Uehling joined the “Tropics” chapter this year as an author for the section on tropical cyclones in the North Indian Ocean.
Laura Stevens edited the North America section of the “Regional Climates” chapter this year. The North America section reports on annual and seasonal temperatures, precipitation, and notable climate events and impacts for Canada, Mexico, the contiguous United States, and Alaska (Hawai‘i, Puerto Rico, and other US territories are addressed elsewhere in the report). This year’s report also includes a sidebar on the record-breaking 2023 Canadian wildfire season.
Garrett Graham was one of the authors for the “Global Oceans” chapter, in a year that saw record-high sea surface temperatures, global ocean heat content, and global average sea level, as well as a record number of marine heatwave days.
Finally, Jessicca Allen once again provided extensive graphic design support, working to prepare and polish numerous complex figures.
You can read NCEI’s summary of this year’s report here.
The full State of the Climate report is freely available to everyone on the BAMS website.
Blunden, J. and T. Boyer, Eds., 2024: “State of the Climate in 2023”. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 105 (8), Si–S102 https://doi.org/10.1175/2024BAMSStateoftheClimate.1.