Confirmed: 2024 was the hottest year on record in the air and the oceans
The extreme temperatures caused massive disruption around the world.
“The frozen parts of Earth’s surface, known as the cryosphere, are melting at an alarming rate: glaciers continue to retreat, and Antarctic sea ice reached its second-lowest extent ever recorded,” Celeste Saulo said.
“Meanwhile, extreme weather continues to have devastating consequences around the world.”
Tropical cyclones, floods, droughts, and other hazards in 2024 led to the highest number of new displacements recorded for the past 16 years, contributed to worsening food crises, and caused massive economic losses.
There were at least 151 “unprecedented” extreme weather events recorded in 2024, and the year saw 824,000 people around the world displaced by such events, the highest number since 2008.
The record global temperatures seen in 2023 and broken in 2024 were mainly due to the ongoing rise in greenhouse gas emissions, coupled with a shift from a cooling La Nina to a warming El Nino event, says the report.
Flooding in Lismore, northern NSW, early last year.Credit: Getty Images
Other factors accelerating the warming may include changes in the solar cycle, a massive volcanic eruption and a decrease in airborne pollution that may have been “masking” warming.
Between December last year and January this year at least one in five people globally felt a strong climate change influence every day, a second report published on Wednesday has found.
The study by Climate Central, a US-based group of independent climate scientists, found
394 million people were exposed to 30 or more days of risky heat added by climate change, defined as days with temperatures hotter than 90 per cent of local temperatures recorded from 1991 to 2020.
Australians experienced an average 35 risky heat days over the studied period, 15 of which were added by climate change.
Of Australian states, Victoria suffered the largest heat anomaly, with average temperatures 1.4 degrees above the 1991-2020 normal.
“Climate change is not a distant threat but a present reality to millions,” said Dr Kristina Dahl, head of Climate Central’s science program. “The increasing frequency and severity of heat events around the world reveal a dangerous pattern of heat exposure that will only worsen if the burning of fossil fuel continues.”
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