According to the European Union's Climate Change Service, 2024 will almost certainly surpass 2023 as the hottest year on record
This year will "almost certain" to surpass 2023 as the hottest since the measurements began, the European Union's service for climate changes Copernicus (C3S) .
The figures were released ahead of next week's United Nations COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan, during which countries will try to agree a huge increase in funding to fight climate change.
However, the victory of Donald Trump in the US elections reduced the expectations of these talks.
The European service said that from January to October, the average global temperature was so high that 2024 is certain to be the hottest on record - unless some anomaly occurs by the end of the year and average temperatures fall close to zero.
Slow action against climate change
"The root cause of this year's temperature record is climate change," C3S director Carlo Buontempo told Reuters.
"The climate is warming up." On all continents, in all oceans. That's why records are broken."
Scientists have indicated that 2024 will also be the first year during which the planet is more than 1,5 degrees Celsius warmer than the pre-industrial period of 1850 to 1900.
Sonja Seneviratne, a climate scientist at the research university ETH Zurich, said she was not surprised by the new record and called on governments attending the COP29 summit to agree on stronger action to wean their economies off carbon-emitting fossil fuels.
"The limitations put in place by the Paris Agreement are starting to break through, given the too slow pace of climate action around the world," Seneviratne warned.
Floods in Valencia, fires in Peru
Signatories to the Paris Agreement, reached in 2015, agreed to prevent global warming from exceeding 1,5 degrees Celsius to avoid the worst consequences.
The world has not yet exceeded that limit, but the European service expects it to happen around 2030.
"It's very close," Buontempo said.
Any increase in temperature encourages extreme weather.
Hundreds of people died in catastrophic flash floods in Spain in October. Massive forest fires swept through Peru, and floods in Bangladesh destroyed more than a million tons of rice, sending food prices skyrocketing. In America, Hurricane Milton has strengthened due to human-caused climate change.
What all contributed to the increase in temperature?
In May, the average ocean surface temperature reached 21,8 degrees Celsius, which was the warmest May on record. This was the fourteenth consecutive month of record high sea surface temperatures.
"All records have been broken in the last 12 months, primarily due to our greenhouse gas emissions and the additional impact of the El Niño phenomenon in the tropical Pacific. Until we reach zero global emissions, temperatures will continue to rise, breaking records and producing ever more extreme weather events. If we decide to continue adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, then in 2023/24. will soon look like a cold year," says the report of the Copernicus Climate Change Service.
In a rapidly warming world, some ecosystems are more vulnerable than others. The latest review by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change highlights that a temperature rise of 1,5 degrees Celsius or more could destroy 70 to 90 percent of tropical coral reefs. That said, it is important to understand that every 0,1 degrees Celsius is very important because we are talking about global average temperatures that translate into huge temperature differences at the local level.
The European Service has been keeping records since 1940, and this is being compared with global temperature data dating back to 1850.
Source: Reuters
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