Climate: Two Warm Years for France

Thermometers were on the rise in the just-ended year. The year 2023 ranks second among the years with the highest temperatures recorded in France since the beginning of the 20th century, with an average temperature of 14.4°C, announced Meteo-France. "In addition to the provisional assessment presented on November 30, the integration of observations from December makes it possible to confirm that in continuity with 2022, the warmest year France has experienced since the beginning of the 20th century, 2023 ranks second among the warmest years in our territory," specified Meteo-France. "With an average temperature of 14.4°C," compared to 14.5°C in 2022, "the thermal anomaly for the whole year reaches +1.4°C (compared to the normal values of 1991-2020)," the meteorological organization stated. However, at the international level, 2023 was indeed "the warmest year ever recorded worldwide," emphasized Meteo-France, based on data from the European Copernicus program, to which the organization contributes. In early December, just before having the figures for the last month of the year, Copernicus had indeed indicated that 2023 would be the "warmest year ever recorded in history" after an "extraordinary" November- the sixth month in a row of breaking records-and "two record seasons." The planet experienced record temperatures in many countries in 2023, throughout a year marked by months of drought in Africa, as well as forest fires in Europe and North America. Since January, the global average temperature has, according to Copernicus, been the warmest ever measured in the first eleven months of the year: 1.46°C above the climatic average for the period 1850-1900 and 0.13°C above the first eleven months of 2016, the warmest year until now.