 "The burning earth: 2024 hottest year on record, breached 1.5 degree C warming limit set by Paris pact")
It has been an annual recap story for the last few years. Extending its streak of warming, the earth recorded its hottest year ever in 2024. But the big difference of the 2024 global warming was that it recorded such a big jump in temperature that the planet temporarily passed a major climate threshold, several weather monitoring agencies announced this on Friday.
The global average temperature for 2024 easily breached the previous year’s record heat. It surpassed even the long-term warming limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) that the 2015 Paris climate pact set with the late 1800s as the benchmark. The European Commission’s Copernicus Climate Service, the United Kingdom’s Meteorology Office and Japan’s weather agency — all came up with the same conclusion in their reports.
The European team calculated 1.6 degrees Celsius (2.89 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming. Japan found 1.57 degrees Celsius (2.83 degrees Fahrenheit) and the British 1.53 degrees Celsius (2.75 degrees Fahrenheit) in releases of data coordinated to early Friday morning European time.
American monitoring teams — NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the private Berkeley Earth — are expected to release their figures later Friday. European scientists said these agencies are also likely to show record heat for 2024.
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 Samantha Burgess, strategic climate lead at Copernicus.
“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,” news agency AP quoted Burgess as saying.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsThe same story, year after year
Last year eclipsed 2023’s temperature in the European database by an eighth of a degree Celsius (more than a fifth of a degree Fahrenheit). 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 degrees Celsius (62.89 degrees Fahrenheit), Copernicus found.
What fanning the fire
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 vapor, Burgess said.
“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 fueling 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 Center 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.”
Environmental cost is also economic loss
The world incurred $140 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.
The worry
This is the first time any year passed the 1.5-degree threshold, except for a 2023 measurement by Berkeley Earth, which was originally funded by philanthropists who were skeptical of global warming.
Scientists were quick to point out that the 1.5 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 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees Celsius).
“The 1.5 degree C threshold isn’t just a number — it’s a red flag. Surpassing it even for a single year shows how perilously close we are to breaching the limits set by the Paris Agreement,” Northern Illinois University climate scientist Victor Gensini said in an email to AP.
A 2018 massive United Nations study found that keeping Earth’s temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius could save coral reefs from going extinct, keep massive ice sheet loss in Antarctica at bay and prevent many people’s death and suffering.
Francis called the threshold “dead in the water”.
Burgess called it extremely likely that Earth will overshoot the 1.5-degree threshold, but called the Paris Agreement an “extraordinarily important international policy” that nations around the world should remain committed to.
European and British calculations figure with a cooling La Nina instead of last year’s warming El Nino, 2025 is likely to be not quite as hot as 2024. They predict it will turn out to be the third-warmest. However, the first six days of January — despite frigid temperatures in the US East — averaged slightly warmer and are the hottest start to a year yet, according to Copernicus data.
Still, there is a lack of consensus
Scientists remain split on whether global warming is accelerating.
There’s not enough data to see an acceleration in atmospheric warming, but the heat content of the oceans seem to be not just rising but going up at a faster rate, said Carlo Buontempo, Copernicus’ director.
“We are facing a very new climate and new challenges — climate challenges that our society is not prepared for,” Buontempo said.
This is all like watching the end of “a dystopian sci-fi film,” said University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann. “We are now reaping what we’ve sown.”
(With inputs from AP and other agencies)
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