2023 was the hottest year in @NASA’s record, continuing a human-caused, long term warming trend.
2023 was a record-breaking year in many ways. We also experienced the hottest summer and fall on record, and Sept. 2023’s global temperature anomaly – deviation from the 1951-1980 baseline – was the largest on record. Each year in the last decade was in the top 10 warmest years.
The record-breaking heat was due to high greenhouse gas emissions (like carbon dioxide), the transition to El Niño conditions, and other factors that scientists are still researching. Generally, La Niña brings cooler temperatures and El Niño brings warmer temperatures. High greenhouse gas emissions from human activities and the transition out of three La Niña years were largely responsible for 2023 setting a new record.
Last year, NASA and our partners launched the U.S. Greenhouse Gas Center to share climate data for these heat-trapping gases.
Our record, called GISTEMP, is calculated from millions of measurements from thousands of weather stations on land, ships and ocean buoys, and Antarctic research stations. It uses data starting in 1880, when coverage makes it possible to reliably estimate global temperature.
Despite 2023 being the globally hottest year, individual locations may not have experienced a record warm year. However, the effects of our changing climate are felt globally, with record droughts, shifting fire seasons, and sudden, intense precipitation events.
At NASA, our unique vantage point from space is crucial to monitoring the causes and impacts of climate change – both those we’re experiencing now, and what we can expect to see in the future. We’re designing, building, and launching missions to study Earth in new ways and provide data for models that project how Earth systems will respond to rising carbon.
By working with our partners at @NOAA and other federal agencies, and making our data available to local decision-makers and people on the ground, NASA is helping the world prepare for life on a warming planet.
#Earth #NASA #Climate #ClimateChange #GlobalWarming #Science
The UK construction sector is entering a decisive phase in its journey toward decarbonising the built environment, with government policy now aligned to accelerate low-carbon innovation. A £90 million expansion of the Heat Pump Investment Accelerator is set to strengthen domestic manufacturing capacity and underpin the forthcoming Clean Heat Mechanism. Sales quotas for low-carbon heating systems will compel the industry to move decisively away from gas boilers, reinforcing efforts to deliver net zero carbon buildings and low carbon design across residential and commercial projects. This shift integrates with broader goals around environmental sustainability in construction, transforming how heat technology and sustainable building design are embedded in national infrastructure renewal.
Attention is also turning to embodied carbon—a critical component of whole life carbon assessment. The UK Green Building Council’s new guidance aims to standardise how practitioners quantify embodied carbon in materials, supporting more accurate lifecycle assessment and informed life cycle cost decisions. Early design transparency will prevent emissions underestimation, a persistent challenge within sustainable construction projects. Measuring the whole life carbon of buildings at the concept stage strengthens accountability, ensuring eco-design for buildings aligns with sustainable building practices consistent with BREEAM v7 benchmarks.
In Nottinghamshire, Vital Energi’s solar farm project at Rawcliffe Bridge reflects the widening intersection of green infrastructure and sustainable urban development. By integrating renewable energy assets into local planning, councils are reshaping how energy-efficient buildings interact with larger low-carbon ecosystems. The project reinforces a shift toward circular economy in construction, where energy generation and demand are planned in tandem to uphold net zero whole life carbon objectives. As local authorities push policy frameworks for resource efficiency in construction, such initiatives indicate the growing influence of decentralised renewable assets within the UK’s green construction landscape.
Moves to decarbonise high-emission industries are amplifying this trajectory. The government’s £420 million scheme to reduce energy costs for heavy sectors such as cement, glass, and steel mirrors the broader need for low carbon construction materials and low embodied carbon materials across the supply chain. Cost reductions and decarbonised production will accelerate the supply of green building materials and renewable building materials, boosting procurement for eco-friendly construction. These developments are expected to improve building lifecycle performance, aligning with life cycle thinking in construction and stimulating adoption of circular construction strategies in both design and manufacturing.
The momentum behind sustainable design and carbon neutral construction continues to build, yet integration across supply chains remains uneven. Achieving coherence between operational and embodied performance is essential for both carbon footprint reduction and end-of-life reuse in construction. The sector’s capacity to deliver sustainable material specification based on environmental product declarations (EPDs) will define its success in reducing the carbon footprint of construction. True transformation in sustainable architecture and sustainable building design requires an unbroken thread of accountability linking design intent, materials sourcing, and energy operation—ensuring that every low carbon building contributes meaningfully to a resource-efficient, circular economy future.
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