For climate change, 2023 was an “unprecedented” year, “absolutely gobsmackingly bananas” and “scary” and “frightening”. And that was what climate scientists said! The UN Secretary General called it the year in which humanity crossed into a new climate era — an age of “global boiling”.

Climate disruption shocked climate scientists in 2023. “Surprising. Astounding. Staggering. Unnerving. Bewildering. Flabbergasting. Disquieting. Gobsmacking. Shocking. Mind boggling,” said Prof. Ed Hawkins when September 2023 exceeded the previous September record by a huge 0.5°C.

The decline in Antarctic sea-ice extent was much greater than model projections, leading the National Snow and Ice Data Centre’s Walt Meier to exclaim: “It’s so far outside anything we’ve seen, it’s almost mind- blowing.”

Many records were set for new climate extremes — record heat, rainfall and floods — with some of it driven by the destabilisation of the polar jet stream. “We are hitting record breaking extremes much sooner than I expected. That’s frightening, scary, and concerning, and it really suggests that we’re not as aware of what’s coming as we thought we were,” said Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick of the University of NSW.

Records broken everywhere

With devastating extreme heat and........

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