The summer of 2024 set new records, European scientists have found. The world has never seen temperatures reach so high between June and August.
Last month measured 1.51 degrees C warmer than the preindustrial era, continuing a long spate of record heat, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service. Its analysis found that 13 of the past 14 months exceeded 1.5 degrees C, the target set forth in the Paris Agreement. While it is too soon to say if the world has officially breached the 1.5-degree threshold, which will be judged against the average temperature over several years, the persistently high heat is cause for concern.
For much of the past year, the Pacific has been in its warmer El Niño phase, which typically drives up temperatures worldwide. Still, the recent excessive heat has surpassed the predictions of climate models, leaving scientists to wonder how much of the spike in temperatures has been due to El Niño and how much has been due to a possible surge in warming. The answer may now be coming into view. El Niño ended in June, and since then temperatures have remained stubbornly high.
Writing in Nature in March, NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt warned, “If the anomaly does not stabilize by August — a reasonable expectation based on previous El Niño events — then the world will be in uncharted territory. It could imply that a warming planet is already fundamentally altering how the climate system operates, much sooner than scientists had anticipated.”
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