The year 2024 was the hottest on record, with an average temperature of 1.55° Celsius (2.79° Fahrenheit) higher than pre-industrial levels, surpassing the previous record set in 2023, according to six international data sets. Scientists caution that the data represent the average for the Earth’s year-round weather and don’t mean that the climate has exceeded the Paris Agreement threshold of 1.5°C (2.7°F). For the latter, a longer data set spanning decades is needed. Still, 2024 was the first year in recorded history when the average global temperature surpassed 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, raising alarms about the persistent increase in Earth’s warming. Every month from January to June last year was the warmest on record for those months. The average global temperature reached 15.1°C (59.2°F), exceeding the 2023 average by 0.12°C (0.22°F), data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts showed. “We are facing a very new climate and new challenges, challenges that our society is not prepared for,” Carlo Buontempo, director of the European Union’s Copernicus weather institute told The New York Times. Climate change, largely attributed to human activities, fueled some of the worst extreme weather events on record in 2024, claiming at least 11,500 lives and impacting more than 148 million people globally. Following the disastrous floods in Spain in October, researchers found that climate change had increased the amount of rain that the clouds over Spain can carry by 7% for every 1°C (1.8°F) of warming. Meanwhile, the extreme drought conditions in the Amazon Rainforest spanning…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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