The world’s average temperature exceeded the critical limit of 1.5 degrees for the first time last year.
The year 2024 was the warmest in recorded history on most of the continents, and numerous heat-related records were broken.
The year included, among other things, the hottest single day in history. There was more rain-causing water vapor and greenhouse gases, i.e. carbon dioxide and methane, in the atmosphere than ever before in the history of measurements.
The history of measuring temperatures goes back to 1850, i.e. pre-industrial times.
Last year, the world’s average temperature was a total of 1.6 degrees higher than pre-industrial times.
The information appears from the weather data of the Copernicus climate service. The data has been compiled from several sources, including the US Space Administration NASA and the World Meteorological Organization WMO.
– Last year was truly a year of climate records, industry leader and research professor Hannele Korhonen Amount from the Meteorological Institute. Korhonen is also a member of the Climate Panel.
The temperature limit of one and a half degrees is a critical and well-known threshold for climate change.
It originates from the Paris Climate Agreement, where all the countries of the world have for now committed to stopping the warming.
However, last year’s record is not yet about breaking the Paris limit, as the limits of the climate agreement refer to human-caused warming.
Last year’s exceptional readings are partially explained by the natural weather phenomenon El Niño. The phenomenon, which recurs at regular intervals, means, among other things, a weakening of the trade winds, which warms the Pacific Ocean region and thus the entire world. It was possible to foresee the temperature rising above the critical limit.
However, human activity was still by far the biggest cause of warming.
Last year, the effect of human-caused climate emissions in the rise of the average temperature was 1.3 degrees compared to pre-industrial times.
– So the limit of the Paris Agreement has not yet been violated, so this was not yet the one and a half degree crossing caused by human activity. But it’s not terribly far away anymore, says Korhonen.
Floods and storms are a foretaste of a 1.5 degree world
According to Korhonen, the temperature curve does not continue upward as a continuous line. Natural variability and weather phenomena swing it both up and down.
From the year 2025 onwards, it is therefore still difficult to say what the average temperature will be like. At least El Niño has faded.
However, climate emissions have been calculated to raise the temperature more permanently above 1.5 degrees in the early 2030s.
– At the current global emission level, we have six years until the carbon budget for one and a half degrees is met, says Korhonen.
Stopping warming requires that the world quickly reach carbon neutrality, i.e. a situation where emissions are only produced to the extent that carbon sinks absorb them. The average temperature may also start to decrease if carbon is also removed from the atmosphere through afforestation and technology.
– But at the moment it looks pretty bad. We are pretty much on track to exceed 1.5 degrees.
Last year opened a harsh view of what a world that has broken the temperature limit looks like.
The increase in extreme weather events hardly went unnoticed. Wildfires in South and North America, floods that killed hundreds in Spain and dangerous heat readings in the Mediterranean countries were in the headlines.
Most of them were exacerbated by global warming.
Korhonen also takes hurricanes as an example, of which there were a total of eleven in the North Atlantic last year. According to Korhonen, climate change strengthened all of them.
Weather-related records were also broken in Finland. Among other things, there were more hot days than ever.
According to climate models, Finland is warming one and a half to two times faster than the world average. Last year was already three degrees warmer than pre-industrial times.
– Perhaps the biggest feeling is a big disappointment, the climate scientist describes the feelings caused by the new data.
– We have been talking for decades that this will happen. However, no significant action has been taken at the global level. It is very sad to watch the news about extreme weather events and the suffering and destruction they cause. It’s terrifying what’s coming in the future, says Hannele Korhonen.