2023 Was One Of The Coldest Years Of The Rest Of Your Life

For the last couple of years, Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University, has taken to X, formerly Twitter, to update a boilerplate response to the latest global temperature assessment.

His statement this year goes like this: “Every year for the rest of your life will be one of the hottest in the record. This, in turn, means that 2023 will end up being one of the coldest years of this century. Enjoy it while it lasts.”

It isn’t something he actually sends out to reporters looking for his scientific take on the latest temperature data, although the statement often ends up in news coverage — no doubt because it accurately and effectively communicates the magnitude of the global climate threat.

“I make this joke every year, the first time after I got my (probably) 100th request for a comment on a monthly or annual record temperature, about 2 years ago,” he said in an email Friday. “I thought to myself, ‘What else is there to say?’ and then my next thought is that, ‘This will never end until I’m dead.’ And so the tweet came to be.”

This week, three independent assessments confirmed last year was the hottest year in recorded history.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found global temperatures over land and sea in 2023 were approximately 2.12 degrees Fahrenheit (about 1.18 degrees Celsius) above the late 19th-century average. That’s a stunning 0.15 degrees Celsius above the previous record in 2016. NASA’s analysis came to nearly identical results.

“The findings are astounding,” Sarah Kapnick, chief scientist at NOAA, said during a press briefing Friday. “2023 was an extraordinarily warm year that produced many costly climate-driven weather events here in the United States and