After recording the planet’s hottest summer ever, the European climate service Copernicus reported Friday that it is even more likely that 2024 will surpass last year to become Earth’s hottest year on record.
Temperatures for the boreal summer – June through August – averaged 16.8°C, putting this summer 0.03°C hotter than the record-shattering summer of 2023. While the records at Copernicus only go back to 1940, records from America, Britain and Japan reveal that summer 2024 is the hottest since regular measurements began in the mid-19th century. Some scientists, the AP reported, believe it is likely the hottest summer on Earth in about 120,000 years.
Carlo Buontempo, director of Copernicus, told the AP that he was on the fence over whether 2024 would break the 2023 record – until August. When August temperatures emerged as a tie, Buontempo became “pretty certain” that this year will end up as the hottest ever.
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August 2024 tied with 2023, recording an average global temperature of 16.82 degrees Celsius. Although July 2024 was the first time in over a year that the world did not set a new record, a far hotter June put summer 2024 slightly ahead of 2023, when average global temperatures for the entire year exceeded the pre-industrial (1850-1900) norm by 1.48°C according to Copernicus.
The Paris Climate Accords aim to keep warming below 2°C over pre-industrial levels, but the scientific community emphasises that anything above 1.5°C risks far more severe climate change impacts and extreme weather, and that each fraction of a degree matters.
Back in July, when Copernicus released a report that the Earth had recorded the 12th consecutive month at or above 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels, World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Celeste Saulo cautioned against despair. “Temporary breaches do not mean that the 1.5°C goal is permanently lost because this refers to long-term warming over at least two decades,” she said.
