Adapted from NOAA press release on August 22, 2024

Today, August 22, the 2023 State of the Climate report was released by the American Meteorological Society, showing Greenhouse gas concentrations, the global temperature across land and the ocean, global sea level and ocean heat content all reached record highs in 2023. 

The international annual review of the world’s climate, led by scientists from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) and published by the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS), is based on contributions from nearly 600 scientists in 60 countries. It provides the most comprehensive update on Earth’s climate indicators, notable weather events and other data collected by environmental monitoring stations and instruments located on land, water, ice and in space.

A number of researchers at NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) contributed to the report by communicating the impacts of the Earth’s warming and changing environments in Chapter 3 “Global Oceans.” AOML’s Physical Oceanography Division Director, Dr. Rick Lumpkin, is a co-editor of the Global Oceans chapter, alongside Dr. Greg Johnson of NOAA’s Pacific Marine and Environmental Laboratory. 

Chapter 3, “Global Oceans,” documents the shift from the triple-dip La Niña of 2020–2022 to an El Niño that started in May 2023 and strengthened through the year.  El Nino conditions contributed to record-high sea surface temperatures. Global sea surface temperature was 0.13°C above the previous all-time record set in 2016, and marine heatwaves were exceptionally widespread and long-lived in many regions. 

Approximately 94% of the ocean surface experienced at least one marine heatwave in 2023, which is defined as sea-surface temperatures in the warmest 10% of all recorded data in a particular location on that day for at least five days.

Ocean heat and global sea level were the highest on record. Over the past half-century, the ocean has stored more than 90% of the excess energy trapped in Earth’s system by greenhouse gases and other factors. The global ocean heat content, measured from the ocean’s surface to a depth of 2000 meters (over 6,500 feet), continued to increase and reached new record highs in 2023. Global mean sea level was record high for the 12th-consecutive year, reaching about 4.0 inches (101.4 millimeters) above the 1993 average (when satellite altimetry measurements began).

AOML researchers also contributed to the Tropical Cyclone Heat Potential section of Chapter 4, “Tropics.” This section presents the state of the Tropical Cyclone Heat Potential (TCHP) during 2023, with a focus on the seven regions where tropical cyclones occur. TCHP is an indicator of the available heat stored in the upper ocean that can potentially induce tropical cyclone intensification. The section provides a discussion of the TCHP state in 2023 compared to 2022 and to the long-term average. It also discusses the possible effects of this parameter on tropical cyclone activity observed globally during the 2023 hurricane season.

Research and synthesis by researchers from AOML and other institutions appearing in the 2023 State of the Climate report contributes to the body of research that documents our changing climate and can be used to inform further research, policy decisions, and management actions.

AOML authors include Francis Bringas, Shenfu Dong, Marlos Goes, Rick Lumpkin, Renellys Perez, Ivenis Pita, Ryan Smith, Hosmay Lopez, Claudia Schmid, Joaquin Trinanes, Denis Volkov, Stanley Goldenberg, and Rik Wanninkhof, .  

NOAA’s full press release can be found here.