2024 confirmed to be Earth’s hottest year ever, with temperature rising by a worrying 1.6 degrees Celsius: Report | peppermint

The latest report from the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) showed that the year 2024 has been declared the hottest year on Earth with a record global average temperature of 15.1 degrees Celsius, 0.12 degrees Celsius higher than 2023.

It is also the first calendar year in which the average global temperature has exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius above its pre-industrial level, the report said.

According to the report, the global average temperature of 15.1°C was 0.72°C above the 1991-2020 average and 0.12°C above the 2023 average. It says this is equivalent to 1.60 degrees Celsius above the temperature estimate for 1850-1900, which is considered to be pre-industrial levels.

“All 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 must be based on evidence The future is in our hands – swift and decisive action can still change the trajectory of our future climate,” said Carlo Buontempo, Director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) in the report.

copernicus program

C3S is one of six thematic services provided by the Copernicus program of the European Union, managed by the European Commission. C3S is implemented by the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF).

The C3S report comes a day after firefighters struggled to contain a series of deadly blazes across Los Angeles in the United States, killing five people, devastating communities from the Pacific Coast to Pasadena and Thousands of people were forced to flee their homes. Thousands of structures were damaged or destroyed in the mountainous coastal area of ​​Pacific Palisades, making it the most destructive fire in Los Angeles history.

According to the World Meteorological Organization, the year 2024 was projected to be the hottest year on record, including a decade of unprecedented heat caused by human activities.

“Today I can officially report that we have just experienced a decade of deadly heat. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, in his message for the New Year, 2025, said the top ten hottest years on record have all occurred in the last ten years, including 2024.

Some highlights of the report are as follows:

-2024 has been confirmed as the hottest year on record with a global average temperature of 15.10°C, 0.12°C higher than the previous hottest year, 2023.

-2024 is 1.60 °C above the pre-industrial level projection, the first calendar year to exceed the 1.5 °C threshold.

-The past 10 years (2015-2024) were the 10 warmest on record.

-Since July 2023, the 1.5°C threshold has been exceeded in every month, except July 2024. The average for 2023–2024 is 1.54°C.

-2024 was the hottest year ever for all continents except Antarctica and Australia.

-According to ERA5, a new record for daily global average temperature was reached on July 22, 2024 at 17.16 °C.

-Antarctic sea ice levels reached record or record low levels for the second year in a row. From June to October, the monthly range was the second lowest since 2023 and the lowest in November.

-In 2024, greenhouse gases hit the highest annual levels ever recorded in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide column-averaged concentrations reached 422 ppm, 2.9 ppm higher than 2023, and methane reached 1897 ppb, 4 ppb higher than 2023.

-2024 was the year with the highest atmospheric water vapor content on record. As atmospheric water vapor levels increase, heavy rainfall events will become more intense.