The BBCNew data shows the planet has moved a giant step closer to warming above 1.5C, despite pledges from world leaders a decade ago that they would try to avoid it.
The European Copernicus Climate Service, one of the world’s leading data providers, said on Friday that 2024 was the first calendar year to exceed the mark, as well as the world’s hottest year on record.
This does not mean that the international 1.5C target is broken, as it refers to a long-term average over decades, but it brings us closer to doing so as fossil fuel emissions continue to warm the atmosphere.
Last week, UN chief Antonio Guterres called the recent record high temperatures a “climate anomaly”.
“We must get off this road to destruction – and we have no time to lose,” he said in his New Year message, calling on countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. .
According to Copernicus data, the global average temperature for 2024 was about 1.6 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial levels.
This broke the record set in 2023. Just over 0.1C, and that means the last 10 years are now the 10 warmest years on record.
The Met Office, NASA and other meteorological groups are due to release their data later on Friday. All are expected to agree that 2024 was the warmest on record, although exact figures vary slightly.
Last year’s warming is mainly due to human emissions of planet-warming gases such as carbon dioxide, which are still at record highs.
Natural weather patterns such as El Niño — where surface waters in the eastern tropical Pacific become unusually warm — played a smaller role.
“The biggest contributor to our climate is the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,” Copernicus deputy director Samantha Burgess tells the BBC.
Since it was agreed in Paris in 2015, the 1.5C figure has become a powerful symbol in international climate negotiations, with many vulnerable countries seeing it as a matter of survival.
Climate change risks, such as extreme heat waves, sea level rise and loss of wildlife, will be much greater at 2C than at 1.5C. A UN historical report from 2018.
Yet the world is moving closer to breaking the 1.5C barrier.
“Exactly when we will cross the long-term 1.5C threshold is difficult to predict, but we are clearly very close now,” says Miles Allen, from Oxford University’s Department of Physics and author of the UN report. are.”
The current pace will likely see the world pass 1.5C of long-term warming by the early 2030s. This will be politically significant, but it will not mean game over for climate action.
“It’s not like 1.49C is OK, and 1.51C is the apocalypse – every tenth of a degree matters and the climate impacts get progressively worse the warmer we have,” said a Berkeley Earth scientist. Environmental scientist Zeke Haas explains to Father, a research group in the US
Even episodes of global warming can bring more frequent and severe extreme weather, such as heat waves and heavy rains.
In 2024 the world saw Blistering temperatures in West Africalong Drought in parts of South Americaintense Precipitation in Central Europe And something special Strong tropical storm Hit North America and South Asia.
These events were some of them. has become more severe due to climate change. Over the past year, according to the World Weather Attribute Group.
Also this week, as new figures are released, Los Angeles is reeling from devastating wildfires fueled by high winds and a lack of rain.
While there are many contributing factors to this week’s events, Experts say conditions favorable to fires in California are becoming more likely. in a hot world.
It wasn’t just air temperatures that set new records in 2024. The world’s sea level also reached a new daily high.While the total amount of moisture in the atmosphere reached a record level.
That the world is breaking new records is no surprise: 2024 was expected to be the warmest ever due to the influence of the El Nino weather pattern. Ended around April last year. – Above human-caused warming.
But with many records in recent years expected to be lower by the margin, some scientists worry that this could represent increased warming.
“I think it’s safe to say that both the 2023 and 2024 temperatures surprised most climate scientists – we didn’t think we’d be seeing above 1.5C a year this early,” he said. Dr. Hass says Father.
Helge Gosling, a climate physicist at the Alfred Wagner Institute in Germany, agrees, “From 2023 we have about 0.2C of additional warming that we cannot fully explain, which we have to explain by climate change et al. Nino was expected.” .
AFPVarious theories have been proposed to explain this ‘excess’ warming, such as a pronounced reduction in low-level cloud cover that cools the planet, and prolonged ocean warming following the end of El Niño.
“The question is whether this acceleration is something permanently linked to human activity that means we will have more warming in the future, or is it part of natural variability,” Dr Gosling added.
“It’s hard to say at this point.”
Despite this uncertainty, scientists emphasize that humans still have control over future climate, and that rapid reductions in emissions can mitigate the consequences of warming.
“Even if 1.5 degrees is out the window, we can probably limit warming to 1.6C, 1.7C or 1.8C this century,” says Dr Hassfather.
“It would be much better than if we keep burning coal, oil and gas unabated and end up at 3C or 4C – it still really matters.”
