WASHINGTON, Jan. 10,
2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Earth's average surface
temperature in 2024 was the warmest on record, according to an
analysis led by NASA scientists.
Global temperatures in 2024 were 2.30 degrees Fahrenheit ( 1.28
degrees Celsius) above the agency's 20th-century baseline
(1951-1980), which tops the record set in 2023. The new record
comes after 15 consecutive months (June
2023 through August 2024) of
monthly temperature records — an unprecedented heat streak.
"Once again, the temperature record has been shattered
— 2024 was the hottest year since record keeping began in
1880," said NASA Administrator Bill
Nelson. "Between record breaking temperatures and wildfires
currently threatening our centers and workforce in California, it has never been more important
to understand our changing planet."
NASA scientists further estimate Earth in 2024 was about 2.65
degrees Fahrenheit (1.47 degrees Celsius) warmer than the mid-19th
century average (1850-1900). For more than half of 2024, average
temperatures were more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the baseline,
and the annual average, with mathematical uncertainties, may have
exceeded the level for the first time.
"The Paris Agreement on climate change sets forth efforts to
remain below 1.5 degrees Celsius over the long term. To put that in
perspective, temperatures during the warm periods on Earth three
million years ago — when sea levels were dozens of feet higher than
today — were only around 3 degrees Celsius warmer than
pre-industrial levels," said Gavin
Schmidt, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space
Studies (GISS) in New York. "We
are halfway to Pliocene-level warmth in just 150 years."
Scientists have concluded the warming trend of recent decades is
driven by heat-trapping carbon dioxide, methane, and other
greenhouse gases. In 2022 and 2023, Earth saw record increases in
carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels, according to a recent
international analysis. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere has increased from pre-industrial levels in the 18th
century of approximately 278 parts per million to about 420
parts per million today.
NASA and other federal agencies regularly collect data on
greenhouse gas concentrations and emissions. These data are
available at the U.S. Greenhouse Gas Center, a multi-agency effort
that consolidates information from observations and models, with a
goal of providing decision-makers with one location for data and
analysis.
Exceptional heat trends
The temperatures of individual
years can be influenced by natural climate fluctuations such as
El Niño and La Niña, which alternately warm and cool the
tropical Pacific Ocean. The strong El Niño that began in fall 2023
helped nudge global temperatures above previous records.
The heat surge that began in 2023 continued to exceed
expectations in 2024, Schmidt said, even though El Niño abated.
Researchers are working to identify contributing factors, including
possible climate impacts of the January
2022 Tonga volcanic eruption and reductions in pollution,
which may change cloud cover and how solar energy is reflected back
into space.
"Not every year is going to break records, but the long-term
trend is clear," Schmidt said. "We're already seeing the impact in
extreme rainfall, heat waves, and increased flood risk, which are
going to keep getting worse as long as emissions continue."
Seeing changes locally
NASA assembles its temperature
record using surface air temperature data collected from tens of
thousands of meteorological stations, as well as sea surface
temperature data acquired by ship- and buoy-based instruments. This
data is analyzed using methods that account for the varied spacing
of temperature stations around the globe and for urban heating
effects that could skew the calculations.
A new assessment published earlier this year by scientists at
the Colorado School of Mines, National
Science Foundation, the National Atmospheric and Oceanic
Administration (NOAA), and NASA further increases confidence in the
agency's global and regional temperature data.
"When changes happen in the climate, you see it first in the
global mean, then you see it at the continental scale and then at
the regional scale. Now, we're seeing it at the local level,"
Schmidt said. "The changes occurring in people's everyday weather
experiences have become abundantly clear."
Independent analyses by NOAA, Berkeley Earth, the Hadley Centre
(part of the United Kingdom's
weather forecasting Met Office) and Copernicus Climate Services in
Europe have also concluded that
the global surface temperatures for 2024 were the highest since
modern record-keeping began. These scientists use much of the same
temperature data in their analyses but use different methodologies
and models. Each shows the same ongoing warming trend.
NASA's full dataset of global surface temperatures, as well
as details of how NASA scientists conducted the analysis, are
publicly available from GISS, a NASA laboratory managed by the
agency's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
For more information about NASA's Earth science programs,
visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/earth
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SOURCE NASA