Did you notice how hot this past year was?

Whether you were in Shanghai and sticking to your air conditioned malls and homes, sweltering in the record temperatures in Mexico City, or being scorched by the sun in Palm Springs, you couldn’t fail to notice the hotter-than-usual climate.

And scientists from the Copernicus Climate Change Service have confirmed in a recent statement that 2024 is set to be the warmest year on record.

Commissioned by the EU and the European Commission, this work by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts used data from billions of recordings made by satellites, weather stations, ships and aircraft to form their conclusions. The meteorologists concluded, after analysing all of this data, that 2024 was unusually hot, and explained this in the statement:

“The year-to-date (January–November 2024) global-average temperature anomaly is 0.72°C above the 1991-2020 average, which is the highest on record for this period and 0.14°C warmer than the same period in 2023. At this point, it is effectively certain that 2024 is going to be the warmest year on record and more than 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level.”

Though this temperature rise doesn’t sound like much, it’s important to note that it is an average: meaning that some days were very noticeably hotter (even making the news across the world) whilst some days were only slightly warmer than expected. However, the scientists note that across the world temperatures were above average – both in terms of air and sea temperature.

In the statement, Samantha Burgess – Deputy Director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service – noted the significance of their data, and its implications for the planet:

“With Copernicus data in from the penultimate month of the year, we can now confirm with virtual certainty that 2024 will be the warmest year on record and the first calendar year above 1.5°C. This does not mean that the Paris Agreement has been breached, but it does mean ambitious climate action is more urgent than ever.”

This is serious because not only were temperatures hotter on average across the world, much of our planet also experienced below-average precipitation and resulting droughts. This affected parts of the US and Africa, among other places. This has clear impacts on crops and the availability of food, as well as the vital water supplies without which life in the affected areas is near impossible.

However, other parts of the world – particularly in other parts of the US, Australia, and parts of South America and Asia, precipitation was higher than usual. A key result of climate change, this unusual amount of rainfall included destructive weather events including typhoons.

While all this was happening on land, the increased sea temperatures only exacerbated our planet’s problems with sea ice melting, ultimately leading to higher sea levels and further damage to marine and arctic ecosystems. Life under the surface of the ocean might feel quite removed from our day to day lives, but without even the smallest members in the chain of these vital ecosystems, the world as we know it would cease to exist.

These damaging conditions cause extreme concern among scientists, and they are something that our policymakers need to take seriously too.

If the planet keeps warming at this rate, life as we know it will be under threat.

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