After a series of record-breakingly high temperatures over the last 16 months, 2024 is almost guaranteed to surpass 2023 as the hottest year since records began, climate data now shows. And in a concerning development, Earth has now warmed to an average temperature over 1.5°C above preindustrial levels.
Climate action “more urgent than ever”
“With Copernicus data in from the penultimate month of the year, we can now confirm with virtual certainty that 2024 will be the warmest year on record and the first calendar year above 1.5°C,” said Samantha Burgess, the deputy director of the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).
Announcing the news, she sought to reassure the public, whose awareness of that significant milestone has been raised, while simultaneously calling for action. “This does not mean that the Paris agreement has been breached,” she said, “but it does mean ambitious climate action is more urgent than ever.”
The average global surface temperature for November 2024 reached 1.62°C above preindustrial scores, C3S says, meaning the average for the entire year is likely to be 1.6°C, just 0.12°C below 2023’s record. While the Paris Climate Accord referenced by Burgess aimed to limit warming to below 1.5°C above preindustrial temperatures, that target is intended to be measured over a ten-year period.
Storms, heatwaves, fires, floods and feedback loops
The consequences of climate change are already being felt however, even if the ceiling temperature has not yet been breached. Climate scientists attribute the increased frequency and violence of extreme weather events, such as storms, flooding, droughts, and wildfires to Earth’s rising temperature.
Such incidents have been widely recorded and reported in recent years, including vast and deadly wildfires in Europe, the US, Canada and the Amazon; and recent flooding in Spain, the US and the United Arab Emirates due to named hurricanes. Industries and livelihoods from agriculture to Lapland Christmas tours, which this year are suffering cancellations due to a lack of snow, are under threat, and the Arctic could see its first ice-free day as early as 2027, scientists have calculated.
Worryingly, some of those consequences are already in danger of causing feedback loops that will in turn again increase global warming, and so on. Researchers have for example noted that Earth’s low-lying cloud cover is diminishing, meaning its ability to reflect heat back out to space is weakening. The more the Earth warms, the fewer low-lying clouds form, and the more the Earth warms.
“It’s not a surprise,” said World Meteorological Organisation Secretary General, Celeste Saulo at the UN climate conference, adding “we have to recognise that scientists have been marking this for many years – more than 30 years in fact – and that what is a surprise is the slowness to react.”
