The past year broke the 1.5 degree warming limit every month for the first time, estimates the EU’s climate research service Copernicus.
Yrjö Kokkonen, Sari Taussi
For the first time in the history of measurement, the average temperature of the globe has been 1.5 degrees higher than in pre-industrial times for an entire year.
From February 2023 to January 2024, the temperature was 1.52 degrees higher than during the reference years 1850-1900, the Copernicus service estimates.
Swedish climate scientist Johan Rockström says that we are already seeing what continued warming will bring.
– 1.5 degrees is a big number. Its effects are felt in the form of heat waves, droughts, floods, intensified storms and water shortages around the world, says Rockstöm, who works as a researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research.
The effects have been seen, for example, as drought in the Amazon rainforest, heat in southern Europe and wildfires on the American continent.
Since August, every month has broken the heat record
Since August, every month so far has broken the heat record.
Attempts have been made to prevent the violation of the 1.5 limit with the Paris climate agreement.
Breaking the 1.5 degree limit for a year does not necessarily mean that the limit has been broken permanently. Average temperatures are monitored for decades.
However, this year has started by breaking records – January was the warmest January in the history of measurements.
According to climate scientists, the warming is currently being accelerated by the El Niño phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean. When it fades in about a year, the pace of warming is expected to slow down somewhat.
Carbon dioxide emissions are still rising
Climate-warming carbon dioxide emissions, mainly from fossil fuels, have continued to grow in recent years. According to experts, they should be almost halved this decade in order to slow down the warming.
At the same time that temperatures have been higher than average in, for example, northern Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and southern Europe, they have been lower than average in northern Europe.
Global temperatures have broken despite the fact that, for example, it has been very cold in Finland. You can read in this article how the so-called polar vortex affected the temperature in Finland earlier this winter.
In the accompanying video, you can see how human activity has shaken the Earth’s ability to sustain life on several scales. However, the threat of ozone loss has been successfully countered.