Climate scientists working at the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service have announced that 2024 is “virtually certain” to be the warmest year on record.According to its ERA5 dataset, the agency said it was “virtually certain” that the annual temperature for 2024 will be more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level, and it will likely be more than 1.55 C above.For decades, scientists have warned that average global temperatures should not get any higher than 1.5 C above pre-industrial times in order to prevent deadly weather conditions that could impact people worldwide.The world has already warmed considerably and has seen the effects with back-to-back heat waves, droughts and unprecedented flooding and hurricane events. The way farmers are able to grow food has already started to shift, and with 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius of warming, agricultural yields will decline and sea levels could rise up to 10 feet, researchers have found. Experts say the oceans will also be warmer, fueling more powerful hurricanes and threatening ecosystems that are fundamental for economies and help protect areas from inclement weather.Annual global surface air temperature anomalies (°C) relative to 1850–1900 from 1940 to 2024. The estimate for 2024 is provisional and based on data from January to October. / Credit: Copernicus Climate Change Service /ECMWF”This marks a new milestone in global temperature records and should serve as a catalyst to raise ambition for the upcoming Climate Change Conference, COP29,” said Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, in a statement.The Copernicus Climate Change Service said the average global temperature anomaly for the first 10 months of 2024 (January to October) is 0.71 C above the 1991-2020 average, which is the highest on record for this period and 0.16 C warmer than the same period in 2023.”The average temperature anomaly for the rest of 2024 would have to drop to almost zero for 2024 to not be the warmest year,” the agency said.The ag …
