The year 2024 is virtually certain to be the warmest on record, and is expected to be the first when the annual average temperature (January to December) will be more than 1.5°C above the pre-industrial levels and the Paris Agreement’s lower limit, the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said on Thursday.
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 agency said, adding that October 2024 was the second-warmest October globally, after 2023.
“It is now virtually certain that 2024 will be the warmest year on record. It is also virtually certain that the annual temperature for 2024 will be more than 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level,” said Samantha Burgess, Deputy Director of C3S, in a statement.
October 2024 was 1.65 degree C above the pre-industrial level and was the 15th month in a 16-month period for which the global-average surface air temperature exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The global-average temperature for the past 12 months (November 2023–October 2024) was 0.74 degree Celsius above the 1991-2020 average, and an estimated 1.62 degrees Celsius above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average.
C3S has also flagged that it is virtually certain that the annual temperature for 2024 from ERA5 (hourly temperature data from 1950 onwards) will be more than 1.5°C above the pre-industrial levels, and likely that it will be more than 1.55°C above it. Last year, the annual temperature was 1.48°C above the pre-industrial levels.
To be sure, breaching the 1.5°C goal does not mean the failure of the Paris Agreement goal yet. The Paris Agreement sets long-term goals to guide all nations to substantially reduce global greenhouse gas emissions to limit the global temperature increase in this century to 2°C, while pursuing efforts to limit the increase even further to 1.5°C, to avoid or reduce adverse impacts and related losses and damages.
“The fact that an individual month exceeds the 1.5°C limit does not mean that we will permanently exceed the 1.5°C level specified in the Paris Agreement, which refers to long-term warming over many years,” the World Meteorological Organisation had said last year.
The average sea surface temperature (SST) for October 2024 was 20.68°C, the second-highest value on record for the month.
“The equatorial eastern and central Pacific had below-average temperatures, indicating a move towards La Niña conditions, but SSTs across the ocean remained unusually high over many regions,” the analysis said.
Arctic sea ice reached its fourth lowest monthly extent for October, at 19% below average. Sea ice concentration anomalies were well below average in all peripheral seas of the Arctic Ocean, particularly in the Barents Sea, Canadian Archipelago, and north of Svalbard, C3S said adding that Antarctic sea ice extent was the second lowest for October, at 8% below average.
The C3S data comes at a time of massive disruption with Donald Trump winning the US Presidential election and ahead of the UN Climate negotiations (COP29) due to open next week in Baku.
Donald Trump’s presidential nomination has sparked concerns about the US backtracking on its climate commitments, with experts warning of major setbacks to global climate action.
In 2017, Trump had announced US withdrawal from the 2015 Paris Agreement, but the four-year exit process meant the withdrawal never materialised as he lost his re-election bid. His campaign has now indicated plans to withdraw again if he wins, with reports suggesting he may even exit the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
HT reported on November 1 that India experienced its warmest October in 123 years, with unprecedented night-time and mean temperatures across the country, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.
October marked the fourth consecutive month of record-breaking night-time temperatures since measurements began in 1901, following similar records in July, August and September.
