For the first time, the planet exceeded 1.5 ºC of warming for 12 consecutive months

First modification: 02/08/2024 – 23:47

4 min

The year 2024 begins with a record: for the first time since the industrial era, the planet has recorded temperatures above 1.5°C warming for twelve consecutive months. According to the data of the Copernicus observatoryfrom February 2023 to January 2024, the global air temperature at the Earth's surface has been 1.52°C higher than the period between 1850 and 1900.

January 2024 records an average temperature of 13.14°C, thus becoming the warmest January ever recorded, succeeding a record year in 2023. This figure exceeds the previous record of January 2020 by 0.12°C and the normal levels of the 1991-2020 period by 0.70°C. Compared to the pre-industrial era, the temperature is 1,660°C higher. Copernicus highlights that this is the eighth consecutive month in which a monthly heat record has been set.

Richard Betts, director of climate impact studies at the United Kingdom's National Meteorological Office, assures, however, that these data do not mean that “the 1.5°C limit established in Paris” during the UN Conference has been exceeded. Parties (COP) of December 2015.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that there is a 50% chance that the 1.5°C threshold will be reached on average over the years 2030-2035.

For this to happen, it would be necessary for this limit to be exceeded stably for decades. Betts warns, however, that “this is a reminder of the profound changes we have already caused in our global climate and to which we must now adapt.”

A heat wave hits South America

Several researchers issue a warning about the importance of these data.

Brian Hoskins, director of the Grantham Institute on Climate Change at Imperial College London, calls this “a stark reminder of the urgency of taking action to limit climate change.” Meanwhile, Johan Rockström, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that “it is a very important and disastrous signal (…), an alert that indicates to humanity that we are approaching the 1.5 degree limit faster than expected.

This month of January has been marked by a heat wave in South America, where record temperatures and devastating fires have been recorded in Colombia and Chile.

In Colombia, more than 350 fires have emerged since November 2023, according to the Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies (Ideam), and around 17,000 hectares of forest have been consumed by flames. “The month of January was the warmest ever recorded since we have data,” said Ghisliane Echeverry, director of Ideam. Several municipalities in the country have set heat records, with nine of them recording temperatures above 40.4°C.

In Chile, the fires have been deadly. According to the latest report, at least 131 people have lost their lives in the forest fires that ravage the Valparaíso region, in the center of the country. Although almost all fires in Chile are of human origin, according to the National Forestry Corporation, a large factor has favored their spread: a heat wave with temperatures close to 40°C, an episode caused by the climate crisis and the phenomenon of El Niño.

Despite some cold spells and sometimes significant rainfall in some parts of the world, exceptional heat has also been observed in Spain and southern France, as well as in parts of the United States, Canada, Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia.

Will 2024 be worse than 2023?

The ocean surface is also experiencing overheating, with a new record in January of 20.97°C average temperature. This value ranks second among the warmest of all months, less than 0.01°C from the previous record of August 2023 (20.98°C).

This heat has continued beyond January 31, reaching new absolute records and surpassing the highest values ​​of August 23 and 24, 2023, as highlighted by Copernicus. And this, while the El Niño climate phenomenon is decreasing in the equatorial Pacific, which should normally contribute to lowering the temperature a little.

The year 2024 “begins with another record month,” laments Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S). “A rapid reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is the only way to stop the rise in global temperatures.”

In mid-January, the World Meteorological Organization and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) already warned that 2024 could surpass the heat record set last year. According to NOAA, there is a 33% chance that 2024 will be warmer than 2023, and a 99% chance that it will be among the five warmest years on record.

AFP, AP