Record hot 2024 was first year to break 1.5C warming threshold, scientists say
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Last year was the hottest on record and the first to breach a key global warming threshold of 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures, scientists said. The EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) confirmed previous projections that 2024 was the warmest on record globally and the first calendar year that the average temperature exceeded 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
The scientists said human-caused climate change was the primary driver for record temperatures, while other factors such as the Pacific Ocean’s “El Nino” weather phenomenon, which raises global temperatures also had an effect. Analysis from the Met Office, University of East Anglia and the National Centre for Atmospheric Science also found 2024 was the hottest on record, and “likely” the first year exceeding 1.5C.
Climate experts said a single year with average temperatures of 1.5C above pre-industrial levels did not mean the world had reached that level of global warming, though they issued warnings about how close it now was. But the record heat should be a “reality check” with a year of extreme weather events showing how dangerous life with 1.5C of warming was, one expert said.
Pursuing efforts to prevent the world warming more than 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures is one of the key commitments of the global Paris treaty which countries agreed to in 2015, in a bid to avert the most dangerous impacts of climate change. The UK analysis found that the global average temperature in 2024 was 1.53C above the 1850-1900 average, with a margin of error of plus or minus 0.08C, making it likely the first calendar year to exceed 1.5C.
