This year will be the world’s warmest since records began, with extraordinarily high temperatures expected to persist into at least the first few months of 2025, European Union scientists said on Monday.
The data from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) comes two weeks after U.N. climate talks yielded a $300 billion deal to tackle climate change, a package poorer countries blasted as insufficient to cover the soaring cost of climate-related disasters.
C3S said data from January to November had confirmed 2024 is now certain to be the hottest year on record, and the first in which average global temperatures exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial period.
The previous hottest year on record was 2023.
Last year was the hottest on record due to human-caused climate change coupled with the effects of an El Nino. But after this summer registered as the hottest on record — Phoenix sweltered through 113 consecutive days with a high temperature of at least 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.7 Celsius) — scientists were anticipating that 2024 would set a new annual record as well.
Scientific studies have confirmed the fingerprints of human-caused climate change on all of these disasters.
Extreme weather has swept around the world in 2024, with severe drought hitting Italy and South America, fatal floods in Nepal, Sudan and Europe, heatwaves in Mexico, Mali and Saudi Arabia that killed thousands, and disastrous cyclones in the U.S. and the Philippines.
In November, global temperatures averaged 14.10C (57.38F). Last year’s global average temperature was 14.98C (59F). Through November, this year’s average global temperature is 0.14C (32F) above the same period last year.
Jennifer Francis, a climate scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Cape Cod, who wasn’t involved in the report, said the big story about November is that “like 2023, it beat out previous Novembers by a large margin.”
Last month ranked as the second-warmest November on record after November 2023.
“We’re still in near-record-high territory for global temperatures, and that’s likely to stay at least for the next few months,” Copernicus climate researcher Julien Nicolas told Reuters.
This also likely will be the first calendar year in which the average temperature was more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times, the report said. The 2015 Paris Agreement said human-caused warming should be limited to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), and ideally below 1.5. In the following years, the world’s top scientist said limiting to 1.5 was crucial to stave off the worst impacts of climate change, such as increasing destructive and frequent extreme weather events. Scientists say the main cause of climate change is the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas.
Carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels are the main cause of climate change.
Cutting emissions to net zero – as many governments have pledged to eventually do – will stop global warming from getting worse. Yet despite these green pledges, global CO2 emissions are set to hit a record high this year.
“The pace of warming is so fast that plants and animals cannot adapt as they always have during previous changes in the Earth’s climate. More species will go extinct, which disrupts natural food webs they’re a part of. Agriculture will suffer as pollinators decline and pests flourish,” Copernicus Deputy Director Samantha Burgess said, also warning that coastal communities will be vulnerable to sea-level rise.
Scientists are also monitoring whether the La Nina weather pattern – which involves the cooling of ocean surface temperatures – could form in 2025.
That could briefly cool global temperatures, though it would not halt the long-term underlying trend of warming caused by emissions. The world is currently in neutral conditions, after El Nino – La Nina’s hotter counterpart – ended earlier this year.
“While 2025 might be slightly cooler than 2024, if a La Nina event develops, this does not mean temperatures will be ‘safe’ or ‘normal’,” said Friederike Otto, a senior lecturer at Imperial College London.
“We will still experience high temperatures, resulting in dangerous heatwaves, droughts, wildfires and tropical cyclones.”
C3S’ records go back to 1940, and are cross-checked with global temperature records going back to 1850. (AP/Reuters)
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