January 9, 2025
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Earth exceeds 1.5 degrees Celsius in hottest year on record
2024 was the hottest year on record, with temperatures rising above 1.5 degrees Celsius for the first time. The 10 hottest years have all been in the past 10 years
Amanda Montanez. Source: Copernicus Climate Change Service (data)
Officials say 2024 will be the hottest year on record and the first year to exceed pre-industrial temperatures of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). This is another milestone that highlights how far our current climate has strayed from past climates due to the continued burning of fossil fuels.
“All internationally produced global temperature datasets show that 2024 was the hottest year since records began in 1850,” said Carlo, director of the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Agency (C3S). Buontempo said in a news release.
C3S measured temperatures last year that were 1.6 °C (2.9 °F) higher than pre-industrial times, surpassing the record set only in 2023. The year was 0.17 degrees Celsius (0.31 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the previous record holder, 2016, according to C3S) in terms of global temperatures. According to C3S data, the 10 hottest years on record have all occurred in the past 10 years.
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Under the Paris Climate Agreement, countries agreed to try to keep temperature increases below 1.5 degrees Celsius and “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). That threshold has not yet been breached. This agreement takes into account averages over many years. But “we are currently on the brink of exceeding the 1.5°C temperature level set by the Paris Agreement, and the average of the past two years has already exceeded this level,” said director of climate strategy at the European Center for Media. said Samantha Burgess. -Recent news releases from Range Weather Forecasts, the parent organization of C3S.
Amanda Montanez. Source: Copernicus Climate Change Service (data)
Some of the highest levels of heat in the past two years were associated with the occurrence of El Niño, part of a natural climate phenomenon characterized by warmer-than-normal ocean waters in the tropical Pacific Ocean. That warm water releases heat into the atmosphere, raising global temperatures slightly above normal and having a cascading effect on global weather.
But the vast majority of the current temperature rise since pre-industrial times is caused by excess heat trapped by ever-increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Last October, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirmed that global average levels of carbon dioxide (the main greenhouse gas) will reach a record high of 420 parts per million (ppm) in 2023.2 Pre-industrial levels were around 280 ppm.
Global emissions need to be reduced significantly and quickly to limit rising temperatures and reduce climate change disasters, such as the recent fires in the Los Angeles area. “The future is in our hands,” Buontempo said in a news release. “Swift and decisive action still has the potential to change the trajectory of our future climate.”
Although the use of renewable energy has increased rapidly in recent years, efforts to reduce emissions have slowed due to increased demand for electricity. And the political winds in the United States are unfavorable to continuing the progress under the Biden-Harris administration: President-elect Donald Trump has vowed: increase Weakening federal regulations that limit U.S. fossil fuel production and greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming.
Experts do not expect 2025 to surpass last year’s record, partly because La Niña, the flip side of El Niño, has begun. La Niña is colder than normal Pacific ocean water and tends to lower global temperatures slightly. However, the cooling effect is relative, and this La Niña event is expected to be weak. The Met Office predicts that 2025 will be one of the three hottest years on record, following 2024 and 2023.
“2016 was an El Niño year, and at the time global temperatures were the warmest year on record,” Adam Scaife of the Japan Meteorological Agency said in a news release from the agency last December. “But 2016 is noticeably cooler when compared to the 2025 forecast.”
