In the middle a week of terrible forest fires In Los Angeles on Friday, government authorities in the United States and around the world confirmed that 2024 was Earth's hottest year since records began in 1880.
It was the 11th consecutive year in which a new heat record was set, said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
“With record-breaking temperatures and wildfires currently threatening our centers and workforce in California, understanding our changing planet has never been more important,” Nelson said.
Firefighters on Friday fought for their protection NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge before the Eaton fire, which has burned 13,690 acres and about 5,000 buildings so far.
Research has shown that global warming is a significant contributor larger and more intense forest fires in the western United States in recent years and to longer fire seasons.
The devastating Southern California fires broke out after an abrupt shift from wet weather to extremely dry weather, a climatic “whiplash” that scientists say increases the risk of wildfires. Research has shown that these rapid wet-to-dry and dry-to-wet fluctuations occur, which can worsen wildfires, floods and other hazards becomes more frequent and more intense due to rising global temperatures.
Extreme weather events in 2024 included Hurricane Helene in the southeastern United States, devastating flooding in Valencia, Spain, and a deadly heat wave in Mexico so severe that Monkeys fell dead from the treesnoted Russell Vose, chief of the monitoring and assessment division of NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information.
“We're not saying any of these things were caused by changes in Earth's climate,” Vose said. However, because warmer air contains more moisture, the higher temperatures “may have exacerbated some events this year.”
Last year's data also points to a step toward a key climate threshold. Preventing average global surface temperatures from rising 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels has long been considered necessary to avoid many of the most devastating climate impacts.
NOAA put the global average surface temperature in 2024 at 1.46 degrees C above the pre-industrial baseline, and NASA measurements put the increase at 1.47 degrees C. In 2023According to NASA, the temperature was 1.36 degrees Celsius above baseline.
Considering the margin of error in their measurements, “the NOAA and NASA models are well within the probability that the actual number is 1.5 degrees,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies .
Calculations from other organizations exceeded the 1.5 degree mark more clearly.
Berkeley Earth and the European Union Copernicus Climate Change Service Both said that by 2024 the planet would have warmed to just over 1.6 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial times. The United Nations World Meteorological Organization said it was an increase 1.55 degrees C and Britain's Met Office, the country's weather service, has measured an increase of 1.53 degrees C.
Although 2024 is likely the first calendar year in which the average temperature exceeds the 1.5 degree threshold, that does not mean the Earth has met the Paris Agreement's crucial goal, Vose said.
This describes “a sustained increase of 1.5 degrees over several decades” that is not expected to occur until the 2030s or 2040s, the scientists noted.
“For a long time, global average temperature changes were more of an esoteric thing – no one lives in the global average,” said Schmidt. “But the signal is now so big that you see it not only on a global level, but also on a local level.”
“This is pretty personal now,” he said.
The oceans, which store 90% of the planet's excess heat, also recorded their highest average temperature since then Recordings began in 1955.
The most warming is occurring in the Arctic, which is worrying because the region has huge amounts of ice that could melt and cause sea levels to rise, Schmidt said.
Temperatures there are rising three to 3.5 times faster than the global average, he added.
The only place where average surface temperatures have cooled is the area immediately around Antarctica, and that's likely due to meltwater from shrinking ice sheets, Schmidt said.
A year ago, NOAA predicted that there was only a 1 in 3 chance that 2024 would break the 2023 record, Vose said. Then a new high was reached every month from January to July, and August was a draw. So Friday's statement came as little surprise.
The longer-term trends are no better.
“We expect future global warming as long as we emit greenhouse gases,” said Schmidt. “We don’t enjoy telling people, but unfortunately that’s the case.”
Times staff writer Ian James contributed to this report.