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Despite the cooling impact of La Niña on the planet in January, mild weather across Canada made the country a global hotspot that month.
Last month was the 7th warmest January on record for the entire globe, according to NOAA and the Copernicus Climate Change Service.
This graph shows the global mean temperatures for January 1850-2023, relative to the 20th century average of 12.0 °C. While January temperatures have been rising since the early 20th century, January 2023 is the seventh warmest in 173 years. (NOAA-NCEI)
January was the sixth warmest month, according to NASA records, while Japan’s weather agency ranked it the fourth warmest in its dataset.
But even when the northern hemisphere was in the middle of winter, some regions experienced unusually warm temperatures. The Arctic was up to 6°C warmer than usual for this time of year. Eastern Europe and northern and central Russia also had very mild weather.
This map shows temperature anomalies in January 2023 relative to the 1991-2020 average, showing the global hot and cool spots for the month. (NOAA-NCEI)
Canada, along with the eastern United States, was a global hotspot this month.
Temperatures were 2-6°C above normal across much of Canada, according to data from Environment and Climate Change Canada. In the Yukon, Yellowknife averaged 7°C warmer than normal that month, while a monitoring station in Otter Falls recorded a monthly average that was more than 8°C warmer than the 1981-2010 ECCC climate average.
Warm northern winter – cool southern summer
While summer lingered in the southern hemisphere, temperatures in Antarctica were among the coldest of the month relative to normal.
Despite this, Antarctic sea ice reached its lowest extent ever measured, breaking the previous record, which was only set last year.
This graph of Antarctic sea ice extent (measured in millions of square kilometers) shows that it was below historical minimums even in mid-December and hit a new record low in mid-February. (NSIDC)
“This year marks only the second year that Antarctica’s extent has fallen below two million square kilometers,” the NSIDC said in its Feb. 14 update. “In previous years, the annual minimum has occurred between February 18 and March 3, so a further decline is to be expected.”
In fact, as of February 21, 2023, the ice extent around Antarctica has fallen to just 1.788 million square kilometers, and it will likely take a few more days into the melting season for the ice to grow back.
See below: 2022 was one of the hottest years on record
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Thumbnail: This close-up of NASA’s GISTEMP annual cycle chart shows how the global average temperature for January 2023 compared to all records since 1880 has trended relative to the 1980-2015 seasonal cycle average.
