Confirmed: 2024 will be the hottest year on record, the United Nations weather agency said
“We witnessed extraordinary land and sea surface temperatures, ocean heat accompanied by very extreme weather affecting many countries around the world, destroying lives, livelihoods, hopes and dreams,” WMO said spokeswoman Clare Nullis. “We have seen many of the impacts of climate change shrinking marine glaciers. It was an extraordinary year.”
Four out of six international data sets collected by WMO show a global average increase of more than 1.5oC over all of last year but two are not.
The 1.5℃ marker is significant because it is one Important goals of 2015 Paris Agreement to try to ensure that global temperature change does not increase more than this above pre-industrial levels, while trying to keep the overall increase below 2oC.
Climate deal under pressure
The Paris Agreement “is not dead but is in serious danger” WMO insisted, explaining that the agreement’s long-term temperature targets are measured over decades rather than individual years.
However, WMO Secretary General Celeste Saulo emphasized that “Climate history is unfolding before our eyes. We didn’t just have a record-breaking year or two, we had a ten-year streak. “It is essential to realize that every fraction of the degree of warming matters. Whether the level of warming is below or above 1.5C, each additional level of global warming increases the impact on our lives, our economy and our planet.”
Fires in LA: climate change factors
While still raging Deadly wildfire in Los Angeles that weather experts, including the WMO, claim climate change has worsened – with more days of dry, warm, windy weather coupled with rains fueling the growth of vegetation – UN agency says 2024 limits a decade lasting “series of unusual record temperatures”.
A bank building burns in Los Angeles, California.
UN Secretary General António Guterres describes the WMO findings as further evidence of global warming and calls on all governments to introduce new national climate action plans this year to limit long-term global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius – and support a vulnerable solution most vulnerable to the devastating impacts of climate.
“Each year the 1.5oC limit is exceeded does not mean the long-term goal has been successful,” Mr. Guterres said. “It means We need to fight harder to get on the right track. Extremely hot temperatures in 2024 require climate action by 2025he said. “There is still time to avoid the worst climate disaster. But leaders must act – now.”
The datasets used by WMO are from the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), Japan Meteorological Agency, NASA, US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Office Meteorology UK collaborates with the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (HadCRUT) and Berkeley Earth.
Listen back to climate scientist Alvaro Silva’s interview at WMO, following the heat warning in the United States in late June:
The ocean is warming
Highlighting a separate scientific study on ocean warming, WMO said it played a key role in generating record high temperatures last year.
“The ocean is the warmest ever recorded by humans, not just at the surface but also 2,000 meters above,” the UN agency said, citing the study’s findings. international spread across seven countries and published in Advances magazine. in Atmospheric Science.
The WMO notes that about 90% of excess heat due to global warming is stored in the ocean, “making ocean heat content an important indicator of climate change.”
To put the study’s findings into perspective, it explains that between 2023 and 2024, the upper 2,000 meters of the ocean became 16 zettajoules (1,021 Joules) warmer, about 140 times the country’s total electricity output. world.
