This map depicts global temperature anomalies for meteorological summer in 2023 (June, July and August). It shows how much warmer or cooler different regions of Earth were compared to the baseline average from 1951 to 1980. (Credit: NASA Earth Observatory/Lauren Dauphin)
Summer 2023 was Earth’s hottest since global records began in 1880, according to scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) in New York.
The months of June, July and August combined were 0.41 degrees Fahrenheit (0.23 degrees Celsius) warmer than any other summer in NASA’s record, and 2.1 degrees F (1.2 C) warmer than the average summer between 1951 and 1980. August alone was 2.2 F (1.2 C) warmer than the average. June through August is considered meteorological summer in the Northern Hemisphere.
This new record comes as exceptional heat swept across much of the world, exacerbating deadly wildfires in Canada and Hawaii, and searing heat waves in South America, Japan, Europe and the United States, while likely contributing to severe rainfall in Italy, Greece and Central Europe.
