Weather monitoring organizations said Friday that 2024 was the warmest year on record, with such a significant increase that the world momentarily crossed a significant climate threshold.
Measurements from four of the six teams show that the planet was above a desired limit to warming for a full year for the first time in recorded history. According to scientists, if Earth remains above the threshold for an extended period of time, the extreme weather that comes with warming would cause more fatalities, destruction, extinctions, and sea level rise.
Additionally, it would follow a year filled with catastrophic climate disasters, including 27 billion-dollar disasters in the United States alone in 2024, and the start of 2025 marked by disastrous wildfires in southern California.
The global average temperature last year comfortably surpassed the record heat of 2023 and continued to rise. According to the European Commission’s Copernicus Climate Service, the UK Meteorology Office, Japan’s weather agency, and the private Berkeley Earth team, it exceeded the long-term warming limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since the late 1800s that was mandated by the 2015 Paris Climate Pact.
Only two federal entities in the United States had Earth below that 1.5 threshold. Last year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA recorded temperatures of 1.46 and 1.47 degrees Celsius (2.63 and 2.65 degrees Fahrenheit), respectively.
The British estimated 1.53, Japan 1.57, and the Copernicus team 1.6 degrees Celsius of warming.At 1.62 degrees, Berkeley Earthfounded, a climate change denier, had the highest temperature.
The usage of ocean temperature instruments accounts for a large portion of the variations, which are minimal. The six estimations were combined by the World Meteorological Organization to arrive at a composite of 1.55 degrees, which NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt referred to as a “reasonable assessment.”
According to Samantha Burgess, strategic climate lead at Copernicus, “the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere” from the burning of coal, oil, and gas is the main cause of these record temperatures. “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.”
According to NOAA, last year was the hottest year in US history. Burgess stated that it was probably the warmest for the planet in 125,000 years, in addition to being the hottest in records dating back to 1850.
“There’s nothing to indicate that it won’t continue,” Russ Vose, the head of NOAA’s monitoring division, stated on Friday. “When the system’s temperature rises, it affects other components in a cascading manner. The sea level rises. More severe storms are typically associated with warmer air because it can contain more moisture. There are numerous effects associated with a warming planet.
According to a number of scientists, using fossil fuels is by far the largest cause of global warming. According to Schmidt, this year’s data likely increased by a tenth of a degree Celsius due to the El Nino that began the year.
Like police sirens in New York City, climate change-related alarms have been ringing virtually nonstop, which may be making people less sensitive to the urgency, according to Jennifer Francis, a scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center. But in the case of climate change, the warnings are growing louder, and the problems are no longer limited to temperature.
“Hurricane Helene, floods in Spain, and the weather whiplash fueling wildfires in California are symptoms of this unfortunate climate gear shift,” said Marshall Shepherd, a professor of meteorology at the University of Georgia, likening it to a warning light on a car’s dashboard.
According to NOAA, 27 weather disasters in the US resulted in damage of at least $1 billion, which is only one less than the record established in 2023. Those catastrophes cost the United States $182.7 billion.With at least 219 fatalities and $79.6 billion in damage, Hurricane Helene was the most expensive and deadly storm of the year.
Regarding NOAA’s inflation-adjusted statistics, Texas Tech climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe wrote in an email that “in the 1980s, Americans experienced one billion-plus weather and climate disaster on average every four months.” “Now, there’s one every three weeks and we already have the first of 2025 even though we’re only 9 days into the year.”
The 1.5 target is for long-term warming, which is now characterized as a 20-year average, as scientists quickly pointed out. The current long-term warming rate since pre-industrial times is 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit).
“The 1.5 degree Celsius threshold is a warning sign, not just a statistic. Victor Gensini, a climate scientist at Northern Illinois University, wrote in an email, “To surpass it even for a year demonstrates how dangerously close we are to violating the limits set by the Paris Agreement.” According to a significant 2018 United Nations study, preventing global warming from rising above 1.5 degrees Celsius might avoid the extinction of coral reefs, halt the catastrophic loss of Antarctic ice sheets, and spare many people from misery and death.
The threshold was described by Francis as “dead in the water.”
Scientists predict that 2025 won’t be as hot as 2024 because of a cooling La Nina rather than the El Nino from the previous year. According to some, it will be the third-warmest. Nevertheless, according to Copernicus data, the first six days of January were the hottest start to a year to date, with slightly warmer average temperatures despite the cold temperatures in the U.S. East.
Regarding whether global warming is accelerating, scientists are still divided.
The director of Copernicus, Carlo Buontempo, stated that while there is insufficient evidence to detect an acceleration in air warming, the heat content of the seas appears to be increasing not only but also at a quicker rate.
This is like seeing the conclusion of “a dystopian sci-fi film,” according to Michael Mann, a climate scientist at the University of Pennsylvania. “We are now reaping what we ve sown.”