Exceptionally high temperatures in Armenia in 2023: orographic effects, snowpack response and synoptic drivers

Climate conditions in 2023 were exceptionally warm globally.

By Gevorgyan, Piliposyan, Panyan +3npj Climate and Atmospheric ScienceOct 24, 2026

Score████░░░░░░4.2

Key numbers

42% of the globe experienced

VerdictWorth a reader's time today.

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Abstract

Climate conditions in 2023 were exceptionally warm globally. The mean global near-surface temperature in 2023 was ranked as the second warmest since 1850, while the warmest year was observed in 2024 1 . The mean temperature anomaly in 2023 was 1.45 ± 0.12 °C compared to the 1850–1900 average 2, 3 . The jump in global mean annual temperature in 2023 relative to 2022 (0.31 °C) has been the strongest over the last 143 years 4 . Sea surface temperatures (SSTs) significantly contributed to the warming in 2023. Warm SST anomalies were observed at multiple ocean basins at the same time 5 . The transition from multi-year La Niña conditions to El Niño conditions observed in 2023 5, 6, 7 likely contributed to the strong warming of SSTs over the globe. SST anomalies exceeded 1.5 °C over the tropical North Atlantic and the western tropical Indian Ocean. The warm SSTs and air temperatures substantially reduced the global sea-ice extent and the sea ice around Antarctica in 2023 7 . Europe experienced a record number of days with “extreme heat stress” in 2023 8 . Extremely high temperatures affected the United States and Mexico in July, and the maximum temperature reached 53.3 °C in Death Valley 9 . Overall, 42% of the globe experienced exceptionally warm conditions in 2023 3 . Widespread wildfires were observed over Canada and Greece 2, 10, 11 . The deadliest Storm Daniel over the Mediterranean caused thousands of deaths in September, while damages exceeded $20 billion 12 . The formation of Storm Daniel was partly attributed to anomalously high SSTs in the Mediterranean observed during summer 2023.

Artur Gevorgyan, Narine Piliposyan, Hasmik Panyan, Yelena Khalatyan, Sirarpi H. Gizhlaryan, Kristine Margaryan

The editor's rubric

Heuristic review

Leverage2 / 5: Reusable within one subfield (a technique, dataset, or protocol a few groups will adopt).; 16% of this desk’s rubric
Magnitude3 / 5: Large gain: roughly 2x, or a clear new state of the art on a hard, unsaturated problem.; 20% of this desk’s rubric
Evidence3 / 5: Solid: multiple benchmarks or cohorts, ablations, fair baselines, released code or data.; 20% of this desk’s rubric
Novelty2 / 5: A new combination of known ideas.; 10% of this desk’s rubric
Trajectory2 / 5: Some room to improve with obvious engineering.; 14% of this desk’s rubric
Stakes3 / 5: Meaningful benefit to many people within a few years.; 20% of this desk’s rubric

Dimension	Level	Weight	What that level means
Leverage	██░░░2/5	16%	Reusable within one subfield (a technique, dataset, or protocol a few groups will adopt).
Magnitude	███░░3/5	20%	Large gain: roughly 2x, or a clear new state of the art on a hard, unsaturated problem.
Evidence	███░░3/5	20%	Solid: multiple benchmarks or cohorts, ablations, fair baselines, released code or data.
Novelty	██░░░2/5	10%	A new combination of known ideas.
Trajectory	██░░░2/5	14%	Some room to improve with obvious engineering.
Stakes	███░░3/5	20%	Meaningful benefit to many people within a few years.

Editor’s rationale

Heuristic triage from title and abstract text only, not a reading of the paper. Cues found: gains (outperforms); novelty (open problem); verification (error bars); stakes (global scale, climate).

How the score was computed

rank-2026-10-18

Score████░░░░░░4.2

Score = 10 × (75% × adjusted merit / 10 + 15% × attention + 10% × freshness)

Desks place stronger verdicts first, then use this score to order work within the same verdict.

Merit: 5.2 / 10; Weighted rubric, evidence-gated.
Adjusted merit: 4.5 / 10; Shrunk toward the desk prior by editor confidence (40%).
Attention: 0%; Citations, upvotes, points, mentions.
Freshness: 85%; Half-life decay since publication.

Citations0 (reference 15, via openalex, Oct 26, 2026, 07:29 UTC)

The record

Reviewed by heuristic-v10 on Oct 26, 2026, 07:29 UTC. Paper type: empirical.
Categories: Climate variability and models, Climate Change and Environmental Impact, Meteorological Phenomena and Simulations, Global and Planetary Change, Environmental Science
BRIEF, No.8 in the Climate & Energy edition of October 26, 2026.