Jan. 10 (UPI) — The average global surface temperature for 2024 exceeded the 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels threshold set by the Paris Agreement for the first time and was the warmest year on record, European Union climate-tracking scientists said Friday.
The 15.1 degrees Celsius average temperature recorded over the 12 months to Dec. 31 was 1.6 degrees Celsius above the estimated temperature in the 1850-1900 “pre-industrial” era, the Copernicus Climate Change Service said in a news release that linked the rise to more dangerous heat waves, wildfires, flooding and increasingly ferocious storms.
The service said that with the 2023-2024 average temperature also exceeding the threshold, global temperatures were entering territory “beyond what modern humans have ever experienced.”
The climate watchdog highlighted that the six other main groups that gather and analyze weather data, including the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, NASA and the World Meteorological Organization, had arrived at similar conclusions, but stressed that it was not too late to do something about it.
“All of the internationally produced global temperature datasets show that 2024 was the hottest year since records began in 1850. Humanity is in charge of its own destiny but how we respond to the climate challenge should be based on evidence. The future is in our hands –swift and decisive action can still alter the trajectory of our future climate,” said Copernicus Climate Change Service director Carlo Buontempo.
July was the only month of 2024, and the lone month since July 2023, where temperatures did not exceed the 1.5 degrees Celsius level — although July 22, 2024, set a new daily global average temperature of 17.16 degrees Celsius.
All continents — with the exception of Australasia and Antarctica — recorded their warmest ever year, as did most oceans with the annual average sea surface temperature outside of the polar regions hitting a record high of 20.87 degrees Celsius, more than half a degree higher than the 1991-2020 average.
Some of the water temperature rise was associated with an El Nino event that started in 2023 and was now on the wane as the warming trend swung back to cooler La Nina conditions.
The rising global temperature was largely linked to an increasing concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere from human activity, the service said, with a jump in the pace of increase of carbon dioxide from previous years — although the pace at which methane built up in the atmosphere slowed sharply from the 2021-2023 period.
“In 2024, atmospheric GHG reached the highest annual levels ever recorded in the atmosphere, according to C3S and Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service data. Carbon dioxide concentrations in 2024 were 2.9 parts per million higher than in 2023 and methane concentrations were 3 parts per billion higher,” said CAMS director Laurence Rouil.
He explained that annual estimates showing the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide now at 422 ppm, and 1,897 ppb for methane, were clear proof of a steady global increase of greenhouse gas emissions and that these remained “the main agent of climate change.”
The development does not, however, violate the Paris Agreement because it is only one year and the 1.5 degrees Celsius target the 196 signatories signed up to in Paris in 2015 is an average figure over a 20-year period.
Climate scientists believe limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius is critical to avert the most severe effects of climate change on the planet.