A Suspiciously Sweltering September

By Malakhi Beyah, 2025

Published 10/23/2023

The heat this September blasted previous heat records for the month out of the water. Photo courtesy of WMDT.

The terms “heat wave” and “drought” provoke images of an extreme mid-summer day. However, those words dominated the news throughout September as the temperature soared to record highs around the world. Last month was, by far, the hottest September on record according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, which began recording monthly temperatures in 1940. Even as summer gave way to autumn, the average temperature stayed about 33 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than the previously hottest September of 2020. As schools closed early and events were canceled to avoid the blistering heat, many wondered, “Why is this September so hot?”

Anyone paying attention to the weather would have noticed that September’s heat was by no means an isolated event. Throughout the entire year, Connecticut alone has experienced a nearly snowless winter, a warmer-than-usual spring, and an unbearably hot summer. Even as October progresses, some regions of the world show no signs of cooling down: some European countries, including Poland, Austria, France, and Spain, have already reported their highest October temperatures to date. All of this suggests that 2023 will be the hottest year on record; in fact, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has calculated a 93% chance that this year will claim that title. 

There are some immediate causes of this unusually hot year. One is El Niño, a period of warmer temperatures in the Pacific Ocean near the equator. This climate event tends to cause a change in global weather patterns while heating up many regions. However, El Niño only began in June this year; it cannot be used to explain the warmer temperatures before then. Acknowledging that fact, many climate scientists have pinned the blame on the unnatural, more urgent suspect: human activity. The world has been getting increasingly warm since fossil fuels were introduced on a large scale during the Industrial Revolution. Fossil fuels, when combusted, began to release gasses into the atmosphere that retained heat from the Sun and kept it on Earth. That started more than a century ago, and the trend persists today. “Temperature records continue to be broken because we have not stopped burning fossil fuels. It is that simple,” stated Friederike Otto, a senior lecturer in climate science in the UK. 

People have always regarded warnings of climate change as something that would not be a concern until the far future. However, the climate patterns of 2023 have forced the world to confront the fact that the worst-case scenario is already here. Last September was 1.75 degrees Celsius hotter than the average September temperature before the Industrial Revolution, which demolished the Paris Climate Agreement’s goal to keep that figure under 1.5 degrees Celsius. Climate change’s effects in 2023 have not been limited to the heat; extreme weather like flooding and wildfires also peaked around the world. The urgency of the situation has compelled global leaders to take action. They will gather in Dubai in December for the United Nations COP28 climate summit to discuss progress towards their climate goals. Until then, we can only keep doing what we can at a local level to end the trend of yearlong heat and sweltering Septembers.