News and Media

Copernicus Global Climate Highlights 2024

The Copernicus Global Climate Highlights 2024 report has been released today. In 2024, global temperatures reached unprecedented levels, marking the warmest year on record and the first to exceed 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels—a critical threshold outlined in the Paris Agreement.

Key Highlights:

• Global Average Temperature: The year recorded an average temperature of 15.1°C, surpassing the previous record set in 2023 by 0.12°C. This represents a 0.72°C increase over the 1991–2020 average and a 1.6°C rise compared to pre-industrial levels.
• Greenhouse Gas Concentrations: Levels of greenhouse gases continued to rise, contributing significantly to the observed warming and associated climate impacts.
• Seas surface temperatures: The annual average sea surface temperature (SST) over the extra-polar ocean reached a record high of 20.87°C in 2024.

The unprecedented temperatures in 2024 led to a series of extreme weather events globally, including:

• Heatwaves: Regions worldwide experienced intense heatwaves, resulting in health crises and increased mortality rates.
• Wildfires: Elevated temperatures and prolonged dry conditions fuelled widespread wildfires, notably in California, causing significant loss of life and property.
• Floods: Enhanced atmospheric water vapor led to severe flooding in various parts of the world, disrupting communities and economies.

Professor Richard Allan, NCEO Climate Scientist at the University of Reading commented:

The record global warmth of 2024 surpassed even the records set in 2023 and has sent the planet well into uncharted territory. The cause is primarily tied to the rising greenhouse gases that are impeding Earth’s ability to lose heat to space but an additional influence is the cleaning up of particle aerosol pollution in the air we breathe that is causing cleaner clouds to reflect less of the sun’s heat back to space.

The energy accumulating in the climate system grew to record levels over recent years and was compounded by an extra injection of heat temporarily held back by the deeper ocean following a series of La Niña events that occurred before the recent El Niño that developed in 2023. There are still some questions as to how much of the increase in Earth’s heating rate is caused by the effects of aerosol pollution on clouds or on how cloud cover rearranged itself in response to changing ocean patterns of warmth and satellite data is key in unlocking the answers.’

This extra heating of the upper ocean has temporarily pushed global temperatures close to the Paris climate agreement threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial conditions. The 1.5 degree threshold applies to longer periods of time than a single year but as the climate permanently breaches this limit the worsening severity of the hot, dry and wet weather extremes including more severe wildfire weather will become increasingly dangerous.

Because there is more energy arriving than leaving the planet, global warming is continuing apace, more or less at the upper end of where our most comprehensive computer simulations predict suggest and on course for a hugely damaging 2 degrees Celsius of additional global warming over the coming century without far more ambitious action urgently needed to drive down our emissions of greenhouse gases.’

Looking ahead, 2025 is predicted to be among the warmest years on record. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) expects at least one year between 2024 and 2028 to exceed 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, with the potential for a year reaching up to 1.9°C above. There is also a nearly 50% chance the five-year average will surpass the 1.5°C threshold, highlighting the intensifying trend of global warming.

Professor John Remedios, NCEO Executive Director said:

The 2024 global average temperature exceeding 1.5 C in one year is a seminal moment. It marks clearly the difficult and risky trajectory of change in the Earth system with the impacts that we now see month-to-month at different places around the world. We will re-double our efforts to characterise temperature change and its implications hoping that we there is still time before we reach the decadal average change of 1.5 C. We will also work to find evidence for ways in which people can reduce climate impacts and the consequences for ourselves.

Satellite data will be critical to this effort and we welcome the series of launches in 2025 which will transform our ability to provide early warning and mitigation.’

You can access the full report here.