Climate Crisis: 1.5-Degree Target Likely to be Exceeded for the First Time in 2024

2024 could be the first year in which the average temperature is more than 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than the pre-industrial average, according to the EU climate service Copernicus, which bases its calculations on a dataset derived from billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft, and weather stations worldwide.

After the Second Warmest November in History: 1.5-Degree Target Exceeded for the First Time

The US climate agency NOAA also believes that 2024 could be a record year. Even if the overall year ends up being about 1.6 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level (1850 to 1900), the Paris 1.5-degree target for limiting the climate crisis is not yet considered to have failed. This takes into account long-term average values.

As Copernicus further reported, November 2024 was the second warmest November worldwide. The global surface temperature was on average 14.1 degrees Celsius. "With the Copernicus data from the penultimate month of the year, we can now confirm with a high degree of certainty that 2024 will be the warmest year since records began (...)", Samantha Burgess, Deputy Director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, summarises in the statement. Ambitious climate protection measures are more urgent than ever.

Greenhouse Gases as the Main Reason for Temperature Rise

The main reason for the rise in temperatures is man-made greenhouse gases. In addition, there have recently been other effects: the currently increased activity of the sun, the weather phenomenon El Niño, volcanic activities, and less fine dust over the oceans. Moreover, German researchers have just found that there are fewer low-level clouds, which cool the climate. This explains the temperature jump from 2022 to 2023 and 2024. The causes behind this are not yet entirely clear, but could be diverse. Possibly, global warming itself is a reason for the reduced cloud cover. Looking at different world regions, Copernicus presents a differentiated picture for November: the average temperature over the European mainland was 5.14 degrees Celsius. Thus, November 2024 does not belong to the ten warmest Novembers in Europe.

Climate Crisis Particularly Felt in Parts of Europe

Overall, temperatures in northern Russia, as well as in the northeast and southwest of Europe, were above average, while in southeastern Europe they were below average. Outside of Europe, it was above average warm in eastern Canada, in the middle and east of the USA, in most parts of Mexico, in Morocco, in northwest Africa, in China, in Pakistan, in most parts of Siberia, and in Australia in November 2024. The temperatures were most noticeably below average in the west of the USA, in parts of North Africa, in the far east of Russia, and in most parts of Antarctica.

Rainfall Ranging from Below to Above Average

Copernicus also addressed the global rainfall in November 2024: It was below average in large parts of Western and Central Europe, in the southwest of the USA, in Mexico, Chile and Brazil, at the Horn of Africa, in parts of Central Asia, in southeastern China, and in southern Africa. Droughts also occurred in several regions of North and South America. Above-average rainfall, on the other hand, was recorded in the west of Iceland, in the south of Great Britain, in northern Scandinavia, in the southern Balkans and Greece, as well as in eastern Spain and large parts of Eastern Europe. It was also too wet in many regions of the USA, in large parts of Australia and South America, in Central Asia, and in the easternmost part of China. In the Western Pacific, typhoons caused heavy rainfall and damage, especially in the Philippines.

Climate Crisis: Arctic Sea Ice with Third Lowest Monthly Expansion

According to Copernicus, the Arctic sea ice reached its third lowest monthly expansion in November 2024 and was nine percent below average. In Antarctica, the sea ice expansion reached its lowest monthly value and was ten percent below average. "This slightly exceeded the values of 2016 and 2023 and continued a series of historically large negative anomalies from the years 2023 and 2024," the statement said.

(APA/Red)

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