Global warming in 2023 hit 1.48 degrees Celsius, data published Tuesday shows, as the hottest year on record propelled the world just hundredths of a degree away from a critical climate threshold, CNN reported.

Analyses last year had already confirmed 2023 to be the warmest on record, but Tuesday’s data shows an alarming leap in heating from 2016, previously the hottest year. In 2023, the average global temperature was 14.98 degrees Celsius—0.17 degrees above the previous record—while warming in the world’s oceans also hit a new high.

Scientists repeatedly expressed shock in 2023 as successive heat records fell, and warned the world is moving dangerously close to the 1.5-degree limit that nearly 200 countries sought to avoid in the Paris Agreement in 2015.

The data and an analysis, published by Copernicus—the EU’s climate and weather monitoring agency—says that global warming may worsen at the start of this year, projecting that a 12-month period ending in January or February will likely breach 1.5 degrees.

But scientists are far more concerned about a long-term state of warming of 1.5 degrees and above — rather than individual years. Above that threshold, many of the Earth’s ecosystems will struggle to adapt and summertime heat will approach the limits of human survivability in some places.

Global temperatures have been steadily increasing since the 1970s, until 1 degree of global warming was breached for the first time in 2015, according to historical temperature data from Copernicus. It took only eight years to leap another half a degree above pre-industrial levels.

Even compared to the past three decades, when temperatures have been warmer, 2023 stands out. The year was 0.6 degrees Celsius hotter than the 1991-2020 average.