Earth recorded its hottest year on record in 2024, with a jump so large that the planet briefly passed a major climate threshold, several climate monitoring organizations announced on Friday.
Last year’s average global temperature easily surpassed the 2023 record temperature and continued to rise significantly. It has exceeded the long-term warming limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since the late 1800s called for by the 2015 Paris climate agreement, according to the European Commission’s Copernicus Climate Service, the United Kingdom’s Meteorological Office and the Japan Meteorological Agency. .
The European team calculated 1.6 degrees Celsius (2.89 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming. Japan recorded 1.57 degrees Celsius (2.83 degrees Fahrenheit) and Britain 1.53 degrees Celsius (2.75 degrees Fahrenheit) in a data release compiled early Friday morning European time.
US monitoring groups – NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the private Berkeley Earth – were due to release their figures later on Friday but all will point to record heat by 2024, European scientists said. The six groups compensated for the data gaps in the tests going back to 1850 – in different ways, which is why the numbers differ slightly.
“The main reason for these record temperatures is the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere” from the burning of coal, oil and gas, said Samantha Burgess, lead climate scientist at Copernicus. “As greenhouse gases continue to accumulate in the atmosphere, temperatures continue to rise, including at sea, sea levels continue to rise, and glaciers and ice caps continue to melt.”
Last year exceeded the 2023 temperature in the European database by an eighth of a degree Celsius (more than a fifth of a degree Fahrenheit). That unusual jump; until the last few very hot years, global temperature records were only exceeded by one hundred degrees, scientists said.
The last 10 years are the hottest 10 years and probably the hottest in 125,000 years, Burgess said.
July 10 was the hottest day on record, with the globe averaging 17.16 degrees Celsius (62.89 degrees Fahrenheit), Copernicus found.
A major contributor to the burning of fossil fuels, say several scientists. El Nino’s temporary warming in the central Pacific added a small amount and the 2022 undersea volcanic eruption eventually cooled the atmosphere because it put more reflective particles in the atmosphere and water vapor, Burgess said.
“This is a warning light on the Earth’s dashboard that needs immediate attention,” said University of Georgia climate professor Marshall Shepherd. “Hurricane Helene, the floods in Spain and the storm fueling the wildfires in California are symptoms of this climate gear shift unfortunately. There are still a few gears to go.”
“Alarms related to climate change have been going off almost constantly, which can quickly numb the public, like police officers in New York City,” said Woodwell Climate Research Center scientist Jennifer Francis. “In the case of the weather, the alarms are getting louder, and the emergencies are now more than the temperature.”
There were 27 weather disasters in the United States that caused at least $1 billion in damage, just shy of the record set for 2023, according to NOAA. The cost of those US disasters was $182.7 billion. Hurricane Helene was the costliest and deadliest of the year with at least 219 deaths and $79.6 billion in damage.
“In the 1980s, Americans experienced a billion-dollar weather and climate disaster on average every four months,” Texas Tech climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe said in an email about NOAA’s inflation-adjusted figures. “Now, there’s one every three weeks—and we already have the first one for 2025 even though we only have 9 days in the year.”
“The acceleration of global warming means more damage to property and impacts on human health and the ecosystem we depend on,” said University of Arizona hydrologist Kathy Jacobs.
The world is breaking the big limit
It is the first time any year has exceeded the 1.5-degree threshold, except for the 2023 estimate by Berkeley Earth, which was originally sponsored by philanthropists who were skeptical of global warming.
Scientists quickly pointed out that the 1.5% target is long-term warming, now defined as an average of 20 years. Warming since pre-industrial times over the long term is now 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit).
“The 1.5 degree C threshold is not just a number — it’s a red flag. Exceeding it by even one year shows how close we are to breaking the limits set by the Paris Agreement,” Northern Illinois University climate scientist Victor Gensini said in an email. A major 2018 study by the United Nations found that keeping the Earth’s temperature below 1.5 degrees Celsius could save coral reefs from extinction, prevent massive ice loss in Antarctica and prevent more death and suffering.
Francis called the threshold “dead in the water.”
Burgess called it highly unlikely that the Earth will exceed the 1.5-degree limit, but called the Paris Agreement “a very important international policy” that countries around the world must remain committed to.
European and British figures have a cool La Nina instead of last year’s warm El Nino, 2025 may not be as hot as 2024. They predict it will be the third-warmest. However, the first six days of January – despite the cold temperatures in the US East – averaged slightly warmer and is the hottest start of the year so far, according to Copernicus data.
Scientists are still divided about whether global warming is increasing.
There is not enough data to detect an acceleration in global warming, but sea temperatures appear to be not only rising but accelerating, said Carlo Buontempo, director of Copernicus.
“We are facing a new climate and new challenges – climate challenges that our society is not prepared for,” Buontempo said.
This is like watching the end of a “dystopian sci-fi movie,” says University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann. “Now we are reaping what we have sown.”