AP – Earth recorded its hottest year ever in 2024, with such a big jump that the planet temporarily passed a major climate threshold, several weather monitoring agencies announced yesterday.
Last year’s global average temperature easily passed 2023’s record heat and kept pushing even higher. It surpassed the long-term warming limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius (°C) since the late 1800s that was called for by the 2015 Paris climate pact, according to the European Commission’s Copernicus Climate Service, the United Kingdom’s Meteorology Office and Japan’s weather agency.
The European team calculated 1.6°C of warming. Japan found 1.57°C and the British 1.53°C in releases of data coordinated to early yesterday morning European time.
American monitoring teams – NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the private Berkeley Earth – were to release their figures later but all will likely show record heat for 2024, European scientists said. The six groups compensate for data gaps in observations that go back to 1850 – in different ways, which is why numbers vary slightly.
“The primary reason for these record temperatures is the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere” from the burning of coal, oil and gas, said strategic climate lead at Copernicus Samantha Burgess. “As greenhouse gases continue to accumulate in the atmosphere, temperatures continue to increase, including in the ocean, sea levels continue to rise, and glaciers and ice sheets continue to melt.”
Last year eclipsed 2023’s temperature in the European database by an eighth of 1°C. That’s an unusually large jump; until the last couple of super-hot years, global temperature records were exceeded only by hundredths of a degree, scientists said. The last 10 years are the 10 hottest on record and are likely the hottest in 125,000 years, Burgess said.
July 10 was the hottest day recorded by humans, with the globe averaging 17.16°C, Copernicus found.
By far the biggest contributor to record warming is the burning of fossil fuels, several scientists said. A temporary natural El Nino warming of the central Pacific added a small amount and an undersea volcanic eruption in 2022 ended up cooling the atmosphere because it put more reflecting particles in the atmosphere as well as water vapour, Burgess said.
ALARM BELLS ARE RINGING
“This is a warning light going off on the Earth’s dashboard that immediate attention is needed,” said University of Georgia meteorology professor Marshall Shepherd. “Hurricane Helene, floods in Spain and the weather whiplash fuelling wildfires in California are symptoms of this unfortunate climate gear shift. We still have a few gears to go.”
“Climate-change-related alarm bells have been ringing almost constantly, which may be causing the public to become numb to the urgency, like police sirens in New York City,” Woodwell Climate Research Centre scientist Jennifer Francis said. “In the case of the climate, though, the alarms are getting louder, and the emergencies are now way beyond just temperature.”
The world incurred USD140 billion in climate-related disaster losses last year – third highest on record – with North America especially hard hit, according to a report by the insurance firm Munich Re.
“The acceleration of global temperature increases means more damage to property and impacts on human health and the ecosystems we depend on,” said University of Arizona water scientist Kathy Jacobs.
WORLD BREACHES MAJOR THRESHOLD
This is the first time any year passed the 1.5°C threshold, except for a 2023 measurement by Berkeley Earth, which was originally funded by philanthropists who were sceptical of global warming.
Scientists were quick to point out that the 1.5°C goal is for long-term warming, now defined as a 20-year average. Warming since pre-industrial times over the long term is now at 1.3°C.
