2024 was the first full calendar year to see global temperatures exceed the warming limit laid out under the international Paris Agreement o
We knew this was coming but now it's official.
According to the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service, 2024 was the hottest year on record.
The European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) has confirmed in its latest Global Climate Highlights report that 2024 was the hottest on record. The study reveals a rise of 1.6 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times — defined as the level between 1850 and 1900. Previously, 2023 was the warmest year. At the international climate conference in Paris in 2015, 196 world leaders agreed to limit global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius, and to pursue efforts to keep temperatures below 1.5 degrees (2.7 Fahrenheit). Samantha Burgess, C3S deputy director told DW that the world is now "teetering on the edge of passing the 1.5-degree level." [ ... ] Scientists working as part of World Weather Attribution, an organization that studies the links between extreme weather and climate change, found that 26 of the events they looked at last year had been made worse or more likely to happen due to rising temperatures. Human burning of fossil fuels for activities such as heating, industry, and transportation is the main driver of global warming, but natural phenomena, like El Niño have also played a part in pushing up temperatures over the past two years, said scientists at C3S. [ ... ] Typically occurring every two to seven years,El Niño is associated with the warming of the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, leading to overall average sea surface temperatures that are 0.51 degrees Celsius higher than the 1991 – 2020 average. Sea surface temperatures are of particular concern to scientists because oceans store around 90% of the heat connected to global warming.
From climate scientist Dr. Daniel Swain at the California Institute for Water Resources.
Sadly, things won't be improving over the next four years.
