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The year 2024 has surpassed 2023 as the warmest year on record globally. It is also the first calendar year that the average global temperature exceeded 1.5°C above its pre-industrial level, confirms the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).
The global average temperature was 15.10°C, which was 0.72°C above the 1991-2020 average, and 0.12°C above 2023 — the previous warmest year on record. This, according to Copernicus, is equivalent to 1.60°C above the pre-industrial level.
“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,” Carlo Buontempo, Director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, said in a statement.
Also, some 44 per cent of the globe experienced ‘strong’ to ‘extreme heat stress’ — an increase of 5 per cent compared to the average annual maximum.
All the years in the last decade feature among the 10 warmest years on record. Previously, in November 2024, the World Meteorological Organization predicted that the year 2024 was on track to be the warmest year on record.
Further, 11 out of 12 months of 2023 saw monthly global average temperature exceeding 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. The warmest day on record was reached on 22 July 2024, at 17.16°C.
All the continents, barring Antarctica and Australasia as well as for sizeable parts of the ocean, particularly the North Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and the western Pacific Ocean, experienced their warmest year.
The average temperature in Europe was 10.67°C, which was 1.47°C above the 1991-2020 average, making it the warmest year in the continent. The year 2020 was the second warmest.
The Arctic saw temperatures reaching 1.34°C above the 1991-2020 average, making it the fourth highest on record, with 2016 being the warmest.
Oceans, too, felt the pinch. The annual average sea surface temperature over the extra-polar ocean reached a record high of 20.87°C. This is 0.51°C above the 1991-2020 average.
Other records were also broken. The total amount of water vapour in the atmosphere was about 5 per cent above the 1991-2020 average — a record value in 2024.
Levels of carbon dioxide and methane reached a record of 422 parts per million (ppm) and 1897 parts per billion (ppb) respectively — 2.9 ppm and 3 ppb higher in 2024 compared to the year before.
“We are now teetering on the edge of passing the 1.5ºC level defined in the Paris Agreement and the average of the last two years is already above this level. These high global temperatures, coupled with record global atmospheric water vapour levels in 2024, meant unprecedented heatwaves and heavy rainfall events, causing misery for millions of people,” Samantha Burgess, Strategic Lead for Climate, ECMWF, said in a statement.