Mid-2023 has marked a significant period in climate change history, characterized by a series of global and regional heat records. According to an article from the Yale Climate Centre republished by Renew Economy, the single warmest day on record globally occurred in July 2023, and the month of June 2023 was also the warmest June in a 45-year dataset. Global sea surface temperatures have reached unprecedented highs, particularly in the North Atlantic, and the Antarctic sea ice has been slower to grow this year, with the extent well below previous record lows.
The primary driver of these heat records is global warming resulting from human activities. Billions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning continue to be released into the atmosphere each year, and although the rate of emissions is increasing by “only” around 1% per year, the warming effect will persist until net-zero emissions are achieved.
The oceans store almost 90% of the energy trapped by greenhouse gases, and even a minor shift in oceanic warmth can significantly impact the atmosphere. The global ocean has been storing a larger share of energy since 2020 due to a rare 3-year-long La Niña event, and now that the earth is transitioning to El Niño conditions, additional heat is being transferred from the deep ocean to the surface and the atmosphere. El Niño events have historically led to global temperature records, and it is plausible that 2023 and 2024 could surpass previous records. The accumulation of greenhouse gases will have long-lasting and catastrophic effects on Earth’s climate for centuries or even millennia, and climate scientists highlight the urgency of reducing emissions and implementing strategies to mitigate climate change’s far-reaching consequences.
This is the strongest of corroborations for the urgent need for an updated design climate data set for building energy simulation – outdated climate data will produce inaccurate energy performance estimates and poorly optimised systems. Updates to the data are essential for both the energy efficiency provisions in the NCC Section J approval process and NatHERS as well as for design optimisation and outperformance such as NABERS Energy and Green Star ratings.
Exemplary Energy is filling that void. Full data sets for the era 1990-2022 are available now for all Australian capital cities; and our program aims to complete the data for all NatHERS Climate Zones by the end of August. In parallel with that work, we will be producing latest-15-years Reference Meteorological Years (RMYs) and eXtreme Meteorological Years (XMYs) to represent our current climate.