Summer 2023 Was the Hottest in 2,000 Years, Study Says

A child cools off at a water supply line as temperatures rise in Karachi, Pakistan, 13 May 2024. (EPA)
A child cools off at a water supply line as temperatures rise in Karachi, Pakistan, 13 May 2024. (EPA)
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Summer 2023 Was the Hottest in 2,000 Years, Study Says

A child cools off at a water supply line as temperatures rise in Karachi, Pakistan, 13 May 2024. (EPA)
A child cools off at a water supply line as temperatures rise in Karachi, Pakistan, 13 May 2024. (EPA)

Last summer, as wildfires swept across the Mediterranean, roads buckled in Texas and heatwaves strained power grids in China, it was not just the warmest summer on record, but the hottest one in some 2,000 years, new research has found.

European scientists last year established that the period from June through August was the warmest in records dating back to 1940 - a clear sign of climate change fueling new extremes.

But the summer heat of 2023 in the Northern Hemisphere also eclipses records over a far longer time horizon, a study in the journal Nature found on Tuesday.

"When you look at the long sweep of history, you can see just how dramatic recent global warming is," said study co-author Jan Esper, a climate scientist at Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany.

Summer 2023 saw land temperatures between 30 and 90 degrees North of latitude reach 2.07 degrees Celsius (3.73 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than pre-industrial averages, the study said.

Scientists used meteorological station records dating back to the mid-1800s combined with tree rings from thousands of trees across nine sites in the Northern Hemisphere, to recreate what annual temperatures looked like in the distant past.

Last summer, they found, was 2.2 C warmer (4 F) than the estimated average temperatures for the years of 1 to 1890, based on these tree ring proxies.

Scientists with the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service said in January that 2023 was "very likely" to have been the warmest in the last 100,000 years.

However, Esper and a team of European scientists have refuted such claims. They argue the scientific methods of gleaning past climate information from sources such as lake and marine sediments and peat bogs, do not allow to draw out year-by-year comparisons for temperature extremes over such a vast time scale.

"We don't have such data," Esper said. "That was an overstatement."

The warming from rising greenhouse gas emissions caused by the burning of fossil fuels was amplified last summer by an El Nino climate pattern which generally leads to warmer global temperatures, Esper said.

"We end up with longer and more severe heatwaves and extended periods of drought," he said.



Greece's 'Instagram Island' Santorini nears Saturation Point

Tourists queue as they wait to take a picture from one of the balconies. Aris Oikonomou / AFP
Tourists queue as they wait to take a picture from one of the balconies. Aris Oikonomou / AFP
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Greece's 'Instagram Island' Santorini nears Saturation Point

Tourists queue as they wait to take a picture from one of the balconies. Aris Oikonomou / AFP
Tourists queue as they wait to take a picture from one of the balconies. Aris Oikonomou / AFP

One of the most enduring images of Greece's summer travel brand is the world-famous sunset on Santorini Island, framed by sea-blue church domes on a jagged cliff high above a volcanic caldera.
This scene has inspired millions of fridge magnets, posters, and souvenirs -- and now the queue to reach the viewing spot in the clifftop village of Oia can take more than 20 minutes, said AFP.
Santorini is a key stopover of the Greek cruise experience. But with parts of the island nearing saturation, officials are considering restrictions.
Of the record 32.7 million people who visited Greece last year, around 3.4 million, or one in 10, went to the island of just 15,500 residents.
"We need to set limits if we don't want to sink under overtourism," Santorini mayor Nikos Zorzos told AFP.
"There must not be a single extra bed... whether in the large hotels or Airbnb rentals."
As the sun set behind the horizon in Oia, thousands raised their phones to the sky to capture the moment, followed by scattered applause.
For canny entrepreneurs, the Cycladic island's famous sunset can be a cash cow.
One company advertised more than 50 "flying dresses", which have long flowing trains, for up to 370 euros ($401), on posters around Oia for anyone who wishes to "feel like a Greek goddess" or spruce up selfies.
'Respect Oia'
But elsewhere in Oia's narrow streets, residents have put up signs urging visitors to respect their home.
"RESPECT... It's your holiday... but it's our home," read a purple sign from the Save Oia group.
Shaped by a volcanic eruption 3,600 years ago, Santorini's landscape is "unique", the mayor said, and "should not be harmed by new infrastructure".
Around a fifth of the island is currently occupied by buildings.
At the edge of the cliff, a myriad of swimming pools and jacuzzis highlight Santorini is also a pricey destination.
In 2023, 800 cruise ships brought some 1.3 million passengers, according to the Hellenic Ports Association.
Cruise ships "do a lot of harm to the island", said Chantal Metakides, a Belgian resident of Santorini for 26 years.
"When there are eight or nine ships pumping out smoke, you can see the layer of pollution in the caldera," she said.
Cruise ship limits
In June, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis floated the possibility of capping cruise ship arrivals to Greece's most popular islands.
"I think we'll do it next year," he told Bloomberg, noting that Santorini and tourist magnet Mykonos "are clearly suffering".
"There are people spending a lot of money to be on Santorini and they don’t want the island to be swamped," said the pro-business conservative leader, who was re-elected to a second four-year term last year.
In an AFP interview, Tourism Minister Olga Kefalogianni echoed this sentiment and said: "We must set quotas because it's impossible for an island such as Santorini... to have five cruise ships arriving at the same time."
Local officials have set a limit of 8,000 cruise boat passengers per day from next year.
But not all local operators agree.
Antonis Pagonis, head of Santorini's hoteliers association, believes better visitor flow management is part of the solution.
"It is not possible to have (on) a Monday, for example, 20 to 25,000 guests from the cruise ships, and the next day zero," he said.
Pagonis also argued that most of the congestion only affects parts of the island like the capital, Fira.
In the south of the island, the volcanic sand beaches are less crowded, even though it is high season in July.
'I'm in Türkiye
The modern tourism industry has also changed visitor behavior.
"I listened (to) people making a FaceTime call with the family, saying 'I'm in Türkiye," smiled tourist guide Kostas Sakavaras.
"They think that the church over there is a mosque because yesterday they were in Türkiye."
The veteran guide said the average tourist coming to the island has changed.
"Instagram has defined the way people choose the places to visit," he said, explaining everybody wants the perfect Instagram photo to confirm their expectations.