In 2024, Earth overall saw its highest global temperature dating to the beginning of NOAA’s climate record in 1850, according to the agency.
The planet’s average temperature was 1.46 degrees Celsius warmer than the preindustrial (1850-1900) average, just shy of the Paris Climate Agreement’s 1.5-degree ceiling for irreversible damage.
A large majority of land surface saw above-average temperatures in 2024, according to NOAA, including record warmth for the Americas, Europe, Africa and Oceania, while it was the second-hottest year on record for Asia and the Arctic. All of the 10 warmest years recorded since 1850 occurred within the last decade, including 2023, which was previously the warmest year on record.
Carbon dioxide emissions, the primary cause of global warming, saw a projected global increase of about 1 billion metric tons for a total of about 41.6 billion metric tons in 2024, according to an estimate from the World Meteorological Organization.
On a press call Friday, Russell Vose, chief of the Product Development Branch at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, suggested the recent El Nino that ended in May was also a likely contributor, as well as reductions in air pollution over the oceans that allowed more sunlight to warm them.
Meanwhile, the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Service similarly found with “virtual certainty” that 2024 was the warmest year on record; but unlike NOAA, it also found that the year exceeded the 1.5-degree limit for the first time. It also found that average global temperatures for both the month of November and boreal autumn were the second warmest on record behind 2023.
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