This year is "effectively certain" to be the warmest on record and the first calendar year in which average global temperatures were more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times, Europe’s climate monitor has announced.
"At this point, it is effectively certain that 2024 is going to be the warmest year on record," the Copernicus Climate Change Service said in its monthly bulletin.
This year is sure to eclipse 2023 as the hottest yet, and it will be the first time the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit agreed under the Paris climate accord intended to limit warming.
Scientists have warned that that exceeding 1.5C over a long period would greatly imperil the planet.
A single year above 1.5C "does not mean that the Paris Agreement has been breached,” said Copernicus deputy director Samantha Burgess, “but it does mean ambitious climate action is more urgent than ever".
Rising temperatures bring disaster
In October, the United Nations said the current trajectory of fossil fuel emissions, despite a global pledge to move away from coal, oil and gas, would result in a catastrophic 3.1C of warming.
Even at present levels, climate change is taking its toll, with countries – rich and poor – hammered this year by floods, droughts and fires that scientists have directly linked to it.
Developing countries are particularly vulnerable, and by 2035 will need $1.3 trillion a year in assistance to cope with the impacts of climate change.
At UN climate talks in November, wealthy countries committed $300 billion annually by 2035, an amount decried as woefully inadequate.
Why is this happening?
Even if scientists have linked increased temperatures with fossil fuel emissions, the extraordinary heat over the last 1.5 years has sparked debate.
The El Nino - a natural phenomenon that moves around warm water – peaked at the start of 2024, and while it explains some of the temperature rise, scientists it could not alone explain the record-breaking heat in the atmosphere and seas.
Last week, a study published in the journal Science suggested a lack of low-lying clouds could be causing less heat to bounce back into space.
A separate paper in May explored the possibility that cleaner-burning shipping fuels were releasing less mirror-like particles into clouds, dimming their reflectivity.
The recent years were "clearly exceptional", Copernicus climate scientist Julien Nicolas told the AFP news agency. "As we get more data, we will hopefully better understand what happened.”
(with AFP)
