2024 will be the warmest ever and the first year on record to measure 1.5°C warmer than the pre-industrial era. That’s according to EU satellite data.
Provision data for January to October complied by the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service suggests 2024 is going to break all previous records.
“The global-average temperature for the past 12 months (November 2023 – October 2024) was 0.74°C above the 1991-2020 average, and an estimated 1.62°C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average”, according to Copernicus’ report.
“It is now virtually certain that 2024 will be the warmest year on record. The average temperature anomaly for the rest of 2024 would have to drop to almost zero for 2024 to not be the warmest year.”
The record temperatures do not, however, mean that the Paris Agreement has been breached.
The COP21 agreement, signed in 2015 by 195 countries plus the European Union, committed governments to the need to limit global warming to 1.5°C by the end of this century.
Since then, global temperatures have risen faster than many predicted. But if, as Copernicus now predicts, the 2024 annual average was above 1.5°C, it will still not be considered a breach.
“The Paris Agreement is supposed to reflect when human-caused global warming consistently exceeds 1.5°C compared to pre-industrial times”, states the US scientific agency NOAA.
“That is NOT simply when average global temperatures pass that mark on any given day, month, or even year. To know when Earth has passed that threshold, we have to look at longer timescales.”
Nonetheless, the record temperatures are deeply concerning to environmentalist.
The month of October was another record breaker, 1.65°C above the pre-industrial level.
Over the past 16 months, 15 have surpassed previous records. All 15 are likely to have exceeded 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. That data is still being analysed.
“After 10 months of 2024 it is now virtually certain that 2024 will be the warmest year on record and the first year of more than 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels”, said Copernicus Deputy Director, Samantha Burgess.
“This marks a new milestone in global temperature records and should serve as a catalyst to raise ambition for the upcoming Climate Change Conference, COP29.”
The 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP29, starts next week. Hundreds of delegates, lobbyists and journalists are expected to attend the conference in Azerbaijan.
Copernicus is part of the European Union’s space programme. Funded by the EU, it uses a network of satellites to monitor the earth’s atmosphere, land and sea. The data it gathers is then processed by supercomputers and analysed by its team of experts.