It's a moment scientists have warned about for months: Earth has just ended its warmest year since people began keeping records, and scientists say it may have been the warmest in 125,000 years.
Even though the December data isn't yet official, the results were already "locked in" by mid-December, Gavin Schmidt, a scientist at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, told USA TODAY.
Given the six consecutive months of extremely warm temperatures, it was virtually impossible for December to be cold enough to alter the final results.
"We are already beyond the point that any normal process would be able to keep 2023 from being the hottest year," Robert Rohde of Berkeley Earth, said in mid-December.
Official reports from organizations such as the Copernicus Climate Change Service in Europe, and U.S. agencies such as NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are set to make their "warmest year on record" announcements over the next couple of weeks.
What's especially concerning, experts say, is that "the rate of warming over the past century has no precedent as far back as we are able to look, not only hundreds or thousands, but many millions of years," according to University of Pennsylvania meteorologist Michael Mann's book "Our Fragile Moment."
TVNL Comment: Keep those fossil fuels coming, folks. You climate change deniers will win the contest. Each year will be hotter than the one before. Fools.