Leading climate scientists said they watched with surprise as “extraordinary” global temperatures broke record after record last year.
The UN’s World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) confirmed 2024 as the hottest year on record as it released its flagship State of the Global Climate report on Wednesday.
The agency said global average temperatures hit around 1.55C above pre-industrial levels, outstripping even the record heat of 2023.
Exceptional
Scientists said this was mainly driven by the ongoing rise in planet-heating emissions but was also coupled with the warming El Nino weather phenomenon in the pacific.
Although last year was the first to breach the key 1.5C threshold to which countries have committed to limit dangerous global warming, the WMO said this does not mean the world has failed to meet the goal over the long-term.
Instead, it said long-term warming is currently estimated at between 1.34 and 1.41C compared to an 1850-1900 baseline, although the scientists noted the uncertainty ranges in global temperature statistics.
Dr John Kennedy, co-chairman of the WMO climate monitoring team, said he was “surprised” by the extent of record-breaking over the last two years.
“As someone who watches global temperatures come in month after month in great detail, the string of record warm months, the sustained warmth from 2023 until the month just gone, has been really exceptional. We’ve seen either the warmest or second warmest month on record throughout that entire period.”
Alarming
While temperatures were boosted by El Nino, Dr Kennedy said the trend has continued even as the world moves into La Nina, a more cooling spell. “It’s been really quite extraordinary to see that warmth continue for so long,” he added.
Fellow WMO scientist Omar Baddour said he cannot remember seeing such a series of monthly record-breaking, calling 2023 and 2024 “very unique on that aspect”. “It’s not only on the annual basis that we broke records but also monthly and sometimes daily,” he said.
Meanwhile, Chris Hewitt, WMO’s director of the climate services branch, highlighted that the last 10 years are all in the top 10 warmest on record. “That’s never happened before,” he said.
WMO oceanographer Karina Von Schuckmann said she watched with “concern” as ocean warming and sea level rise not only reached new highs but have been accelerating at record rates, while also noting that temperatures did not fall as expected at the end of 2024.
Challenged on the extent to which warming is human induced on a planet whose climate has changed over millennia, Professor Hewitt said.
“Of course the climate is always changing but that’s not really the message that’s being shown here.” Instead, he warned that changes to temperatures, sea levels and ice are happening at “an alarming rate”.
Wildfires
