Two-thirds of the world’s floor was scorched by a month or extra of record-breaking warmth, Guardian evaluation of satellite tv for pc information can reveal.
In oceans and on land, from Colombia to China, and from the north to south pole, information for the month-to-month common temperature have been smashed time and time once more final 12 months – in some instances, by as a lot as 5C (9F) hotter than the earlier report.
The Guardian took the typical temperatures for every month in 2024, as recorded by the EU’s Copernicus Local weather Change Service (C3S), and in contrast them with the most well liked month since 1979.
Wherever colored in yellow by way of to pink on the map broke a temperature report – one thing that scientists have warned represents “the widespread, accelerating influence of human-induced local weather change”.
Total, world warming is brought on by burning fossil fuels. Consultants warn that persevering with to take action will result in extra demise, illness and destruction.
The Paris settlement set a goal of limiting world warming to 1.5C by the tip of the century. Whereas 2024 surpassed this stage, the goal is measured over many years, so a single 12 months above that stage doesn’t imply the goal has been missed.
Nonetheless, present insurance policies put the world on monitor for two.7C of worldwide heating, and specialists warn the local weather emergency continues to worsen with each fraction of a level that temperatures rise. Yearly previously decade has been one of many 10 hottest, in information that return to 1850.
A lady makes use of a fan as she walks on a scorching June day in Beijing. Andy Wong/ AP
A person and his granddaughter in a flooded avenue in Cuba after Hurricane Helene, in September. Ramón Espinosa/ AP
A polar bear strolling on sea ice within the Arctic Ocean in July. Sebnem Coskun/ Anadolu/ Getty Photos
A firefighter works to extinguish a fireplace in Corumba close to the Pantanal in Brazil, in June. Sebastião Moreira/ EPA
C3S senior scientist Julien Nicolas mentioned: “These findings spotlight the unprecedented circumstances of 2024 and the widespread, accelerating influence of human-induced local weather change. Because the planet continues to heat, extra information are prone to be damaged in lots of elements of the world, exposing bigger populations to excessive warmth, putting higher pressure on the atmosphere and ecosystems, and growing the chance of profound and irreversible modifications to the local weather.”
The Guardian evaluation is predicated on air temperature two metres above the bottom or sea. The month-to-month figures are primarily based on a mean of the every day figures, which themselves are a mean of the hourly temperatures from Copernicus.
These hourly snapshots are calculated by state-of-the-art reanalysis fashions, which mix billions of readings from satellites, ships, planes and climate stations. They’re extra correct in populated elements of the planet than in distant areas with few direct statement websites.
“These analyses are in step with what is predicted given the very massive warming thus far, and the notably excessive circumstances this 12 months,” mentioned Sonia Seneviratne, a local weather scientist at ETH Zurich and vice-chair of the bodily science working group of the Intergovernmental Panel on Local weather Change (IPCC).
“If we don’t handle to lower the burning of fossil fuels and cut back the worldwide emissions of CO2 quick, these excessive temperatures will proceed to turn out to be much more excessive and frequent,” she mentioned. “Some areas may turn out to be inhabitable. The final IPCC report has highlighted that we’re beginning to attain some limits to adaptation beneath the present stage of worldwide warming.”
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