FOR THE FIRST time, average global temperatures across a full calendar year were more than 1.5 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial levels – a sign of escalating climate change.

The world’s major climate-monitoring scientific bodies all agree that 2024 brought new heights of global warming and climate change impacts that caused “misery for millions”.

Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) has confirmed this morning that 2024 was the hottest year of modern records and the first calendar year in which the average global temperature exceeded pre-industrial temperatures by 1.5 degrees.

It does not yet amount to a breach of the Paris Agreement – which strives to limit global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius and preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius – as that is measures over a longer period of time.

However, it is still a jarring reminder of how the world is moving ever-more dangerously close to climate breakdown.

“Each year in the last decade is one of the ten warmest on record. We are now teetering on the edge of passing the 1.5ºC level defined in the Paris Agreement and the average of the last two years is already above this level,” said Samantha Burgess, the service’s strategic lead for climate.

“These high global temperatures, coupled with record global atmospheric water vapour levels in 2024, meant unprecedented heatwaves and heavy rainfall events, causing misery for millions of people,” she said.

Global surface air temperature increase (°C) above the average for the pre-industrial reference period (1850–1900) for each month from January 1940 to December 2024, plotted as time series for each year. Data source: ERA5. Credit: C3S / ECMWF Data source: ERA5. Credit: C3S / ECMWF / ECMWF

2024 was the hottest year since modern records began in 1850. It was the warmest year that most continents have experienced, including Europe, and the winter, spring and summer of 2024 each saw record-high average temperatures for their respective times of year.

A new record high daily global average temperature of of 17.16 degrees Celsius was reached on 22 July 2024. 

Additionally, every month from January to June 2024 was the warmest each respective month has been compared to any previous year on record.

Every month from July to December was each the second-warmest, after 2023, for the time of year – except for August 2024, which was tied with August 2023.

In Europe, the average temperature in 2024 was 1.47 degrees higher than it was between 1991 and 2020, and 0.28 degrees warmer than the previous record set in 2020.  Spring and summer last year were both Europe’s warmest on record. 

Ocean temperatures also reached new heights, while sea ice around Antarctica plunged to record low and near-record low levels for much of the year.

“All of the internationally produced global temperature datasets show that 2024 was the hottest year since records began in 1850,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service.

“Humanity is in charge of its own destiny but how we respond to the climate challenge should be based on evidence. The future is in our hands – swift and decisive action can still alter the trajectory of our future climate,” he said.

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Despite pleas from scientists and climate activists for countries to take urgent action to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases that are trapping heat inside the atmosphere, carbon dioxide and methane concentrations in 2024 were both higher than the year before.

As a result of human-caused climate change, extreme weather events were seen globally in 2024, according to the Copernicus report.

These ranged from severe storms and floods to heatwaves, droughts and wildfires. Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and more intense, posing a significant risk to people around the world.

Warmer atmospheres can hold more moisture, and the total amount of water vapour in the atmosphere reached a record high in 2024.

“This abundant supply of moisture amplified the potential for extreme rainfall events. In addition, combined with high sea surface temperatures, it contributed to the development of major storms, including tropical cyclones,” the Copernicus report said.

It also said that in 2024, much of the globe experienced more days than average with strong levels of heat stress, with some regions experiencing higher levels of ‘extreme’ heat stress than previous years.