Climatologists working within the European Union Copernicus Climate Change Service have announced that 2024 will be “almost certain” to be the hottest year on record.
According to its ERA5 dataset, the agency said it is “almost certain” that the annual temperature for 2024 will be more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level, and will likely be more 1.55 C above.
For decades, scientists have warned that global average temperatures should not exceed pre-industrial temperatures by more than 1.5°C to avoid deadly weather conditions that could impact populations around the world.
The world has already warmed considerably and has seen the effects with heatwaves, droughts and unprecedented floods and hurricanes. The way farmers can produce food has already started to change, and with 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius warmingagricultural yields will decline and sea levels could rise as much as 10 feet, the researchers found. Experts say oceans will also be warmer, fueling more powerful hurricanes and threatening ecosystems that are fundamental to economies and help protect areas from severe weather.
Copernicus Climate Change Service /ECMWF
“This marks another milestone in global temperature records and should serve as a catalyst for raising the ambitions of the next climate change conference, COP29,” Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, said in a press release.
The Copernicus Climate Change Service said the average global temperature anomaly for the first 10 months of 2024 (January to October) is 0.71°C above the 1991-2020 average, which is the highest ever recorded for this period and 0.16°C higher than the same period. in 2023.
“The average temperature anomaly for the remainder of 2024 is expected to drop to near zero for 2024 to not be the hottest year,” the agency said.
The agency added that given that 2023 was 1.48°C above the pre-industrial level according to its ERA5 model, it was also likely that the annual temperature for 2024 would be more than 1.55°C higher.
European temperatures were above average across almost the entire continent, Copernicus found. Outside of Europe, temperatures were warmer than average in northern Canada, and well above average in the central and western United States, northern Tibet, and Japan. and in Australia.
Copernicus Climate Change Service /ECMWF
The agency also said Arctic sea ice reached its fourth lowest monthly extent for October, at 19% below average. Sea ice extent is a measure of the area of the ocean covered by ice.
Sea ice concentration anomalies were well below average in all peripheral seas of the Arctic Ocean, particularly in the Barents Sea, the Canadian archipelago and northern Svalbard, the agency said.
Antarctic sea ice extent was 8% below average in October, which was the second lowest average behind only October 2023, when it was 11% below average, Copernicus said. These figures continue “a series of large negative anomalies observed throughout 2023 and 2024”.
The EU-funded Copernicus Climate Change Service regularly publishes monthly climate bulletins reporting on observed changes in global air and sea temperatures, sea ice cover and hydrological variables. All reported results are based on computer-generated analyzes and the ERA5 dataset, which uses billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations around the world.
In a report released last month, the United Nations warned that the world was now in a “period of climate crisis” as greenhouse gases – which trap heat in the atmosphere, warming temperatures and fueling more extreme weather events – have hit “unprecedented levels“.
“The numbers paint a clear picture,” the UN said. “To keep emissions below the critical 1.5 degree target set in Paris in 2015, countries must reduce their emissions by 42 percent in total by 2030 and achieve a 57 percent reduction in here 2035.”
