Global surface temperatures in 2024 reached the highest levels since global records began in 1850, according to an annual report released by NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information. The global average surface temperature climbed 2.32 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th-century average, driven by rising human-produced greenhouse gases.
The Earth’s climate system shattered temperature marks in 2024. According to data from the annual report from NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, 2024 was the warmest year since global records began in 1850.
The numbers underlying the shift outline a departure from historical baselines. The global average surface temperature reached 2.32 degrees Fahrenheit, or 1.29 degrees Celsius, above the 20th-century average of 57.0 degrees Fahrenheit, or 13.9 degrees Celsius. When measured against the pre-industrial average covering 1850 through 1900, the global average surged 2.63 degrees Fahrenheit, or 1.46 degrees Celsius, higher than the benchmark 56.7 degrees Fahrenheit, or 13.7 degrees Celsius.
The Accelerating Pace of Global Temperature Records
The 2024 global temperature anomaly, which means difference from average,
is 0.18 degrees Fahrenheit, or 0.10 degrees Celsius, warmer than the previous record, set the year before, in 2023.
In a clear indicator of how rapidly the baseline has shifted, the ten warmest years in the 175-year record have all occurred during the last decade, spanning from 2015 to 2024. When the new century started in 2000, the first year to set a new high-temperature record was 2005. Now, 2005 is just the 13th-warmest year on record.
Yearly temperatures compared to the 20th-century average show that it has been 48 years since Earth had a cooler-than-average year. NOAA records show that warming trends in 2024 extended above the 1991-2020 average across most of the planet.
Hemispheric and Oceanic Extremes in 2024
NOAA’s tracking shows that the year brought record-breaking heat across multiple planetary domains.
Other 2024 rankings included warmest year on record for both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres individually, warmest year on record for land and ocean areas individually, and upper ocean heat content was highest on record.
Because the world’s oceans possess tremendous size and heat capacity, it takes a massive amount of added heat energy to raise Earth’s average surface temperature even a small amount.
Earth’s Energy Imbalance and Environmental Consequences
Scientists monitor global average surface temperature as an indicator of the state of Earth’s energy balance: how much sunlight it absorbs minus how much heat it radiates back to space. When these amounts are the same, Earth’s average surface temperature remains steady. When they are out of balance, Earth cools or warms.
Human-produced greenhouse gases are causing Earth to absorb more energy than it radiates back to space.
The roughly 2-degree-Fahrenheit (1-degree-Celsius) increase in global average surface temperature that has occurred since the pre-industrial era (1850-1900 in NOAA’s record) represents a significant increase in heat energy circulating through all parts of the Earth system, including the oceans, frozen landscapes, and the atmosphere. Surface temperature matters because it controls many environmental and ecological processes that are important to humans and other life, including the water cycle (evaporation, clouds, surface water supplies, and precipitation), the carbon cycle, and the kinds of plants, animals, and other living things that can survive in different places on Earth.
Ещё по этой теме
