Earth passes critical climate change threshold in 2024: Scientists

New York: The final global average temperature calculated for 2024 was not only the hottest year since global temperature records began in 1850, but also the first year to pass a milestone set by world leaders to try to keep the worst impacts of climate change at bay, the Copernicus Climate Change Service said.

It was also the warmest year on record in the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced on Friday. The average annual temperature, 55.5 degrees Fahrenheit, was 3.3 degrees above average, Xinhua news agency reported.

“The announcements are among several being made on Friday, as major climate observation organisations agreed to make annual announcements on the same date, including NOAA, NASA and Berkeley Earth,” noted USA Today in its report about the development.

“All of the internationally produced global temperature datasets show that 2024 was the hottest year since records began in 1850,” stated Carlo Buontempo, Copernicus director

The setting of a new record warm temperature for the second year in a row has prompted further pleas from many organisations for more effective and expedient action to try to reign in the warming temperatures, the greenhouse gas emissions that exacerbate the warming and the impacts from more intense severe weather events, according to the report.

“That includes events like the drought in California that helped to fuel the firestorm in Los Angeles this week and the extreme rainfall that devastated Western North Carolina as Hurricane Helene and its remnants moved through,” it added.

Data from the climate change service indicates that the total amount of water vapour in the atmosphere reached a record high in 2024, at about 5 per cent above the 1991-2020 average, and significantly higher than in 2023.

“These high global temperatures, coupled with record global atmospheric water vapour levels in 2024, meant unprecedented heatwaves and heavy rainfall events, causing misery for millions of people,” said Samantha Burgess, strategic lead for climate of the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF).

–IANS