2024 was hottest year on record for world’s land and oceans, US scientists confirm
Share:
Noaa says last year was the warmest since records began in 1850 and Nasa concurs: ‘The long-term trends are very clear’. It was the hottest year ever recorded for the world’s lands and oceans in 2024, US government scientists have confirmed, providing yet another measure of how the climate crisis is pushing humanity into temperatures we have previously never experienced.
Last year was the hottest in global temperature records stretching back to 1850, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa_ announced, with the worldwide average 1.46C (2.6F) warmer than the era prior to humans burning huge volumes of planet-heating fossil fuels.
This new record, 0.1C (0.18F) hotter than the previous high mark set in 2023, means that all of the 10 hottest years since 1850 have occurred in the past decade. The data supports separate figures released by European Union scientists this week that also show a record 2024, albeit those figures showed 2024 was 1.6C (2.8F) hotter than pre-industrial times, the first measure beyond the internationally-agreed threshold of keeping long-term temperatures below a 1.5C (2.7F) rise.
Nasa, which also released its temperature data on Friday, concurs that 2024 was a record year, being 1.47C (2.6F) hotter than the pre-industrial era. “All the groups agree, regardless of how they put the data together, there’s no question,” said Gavin Schmidt, a senior climate scientist at Nasa. “The long-term trends are very clear.”.
Schmidt said the levels of global heating are pushing humanity beyond its historical experience of the Earth’s climate. “To put that in perspective, temperatures during the warm periods on Earth three million years ago – when sea levels were dozens of feet higher than today – were only around 3C warmer than pre-industrial levels,” he said. “We are halfway to Pliocene-level warmth in just 150 years.”.
