New York, 9 November 2023 (dpa/MIA) - Temperatures during the last 12 months were the hottest in the past 125,000 years, according to research published by non-profit news organization Climate Central in Princeton, New Jersey, on Thursday.

The average global temperature was around 1.32 degrees Celsius higher than before the Industrial Revolution, the group said.

The heat affected wealthy and poorer states alike. While climate impacts were strongest in developing countries near the equator, the climate-related periods of extreme heat in the US, India, Japan and Europe underline that no one is safe from climate change, said lead researcher Andrew Pershing said.

His team reviewed temperature records from 175 countries, 154 states or provinces and 920 major cities from November 2022 to October 2023. It published the analysis on its website.

Houston, in Texas, recorded 22 days of extreme heat during the period under review, more than any other city in the world.

The next cities affected by extreme heat in the group's ranking were New Orleans, in Louisiana, also in the US, and Jakarta and Tangerang, both in Indonesia, all recording 17 days of extreme heat.

The report comes after the EU climate change service Copernicus reported that that the temperature in the first 10 months of 2023 was 1.43 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average, based on other data.

October 2023 was not only the warmest since records began, but also the warmest in 125,000 years, according to data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

2023 will almost certainly be the warmest on record.

Photo: MIA archive