Nearly half of countries endured at least two months of high-risk temperatures, data shows. Photograph: Fernando Bustamante/AP
Analysis shows fossil fuels are supercharging heatwaves, leaving millions prone to deadly temperatures
The climate crisis caused an additional six weeks of dangerously hot days in 2024 for the average person, supercharging the fatal impact of heatwaves around the world.
The effects of human-caused global heating were far worse for some people, an analysis by World Weather Attribution (WWA) and Climate Central has shown. Those in Caribbean and Pacific island states were the hardest hit. Many endured about 150 more days of dangerous heat than they would have done without global heating, almost half the year.
Nearly half the world’s countries endured at least two months of high-risk temperatures. Even in the least affected places, such as the UK, US and Australia, the carbon pollution from fossil fuel burning has led to an extra three weeks of elevated temperatures.
Worsened heatwaves are the deadliest consequence of the climate emergency. An end to coal, oil and gas burning was vital to stopping the effects getting even worse, the scientists said, with 2024 forecast to be the hottest year on record with record-high carbon emissions.
The researchers called for deaths from heatwaves to be reported in real time, with current data being a “very gross underestimate” because of the lack of monitoring. It is possible that uncounted millions of people have died as a result of human-caused global heating in recent decades.
A wildfire in California this year. Fires driven by severe droughts have affected the western US, Canada, the Amazon forest and particularly the Pantanal wetlands. Photograph: David McNew/Getty Images
Average global temperature in November was 1.62C above preindustrial levels, bringing average for the year to 1.60C
This year is now almost certain to be the hottest year on record, data shows. It will also be the first to have an average temperature of more than 1.5C above preindustrial levels, marking a further escalation of the climate crisis.
Data for November from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) found the average global surface temperature for the month was 1.62C above the level before the mass burning of fossil fuels drove up global heating. With data for 11 months of 2024 now available, scientists said the average for the year is expected to be 1.60C, exceeding the record set in 2023 of 1.48C.
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Fossil fuel emissions must fall by 45% by 2030 to have a chance of limiting heating to 1.5C. The recent Cop29 climate summit failed to reach an agreement on how to push ahead on the transition away from coal, oil and gas. The C3S data showed that November 2024 was the 16th month in a 17-month period for which the average temperature exceeded 1.5C.
The supercharging of extreme weather by the climate crisis is already clear, with heatwaves of previously impossible intensity and frequency now striking around the world, along with fiercer storms and worse floods.
This year is now virtually certain to beat 2023 as the hottest year on record, Carbon Brief analysis shows.
It will also be the first full year to surpass 1.5C above pre-industrial levels across the majority of observational records.
In this latest “state of the climate” quarterly update, Carbon Brief finds:
The year 2024 has seen record warm temperatures for seven of the nine months of the year where data is so far available.
The world, as a whole, has warmed approximately 1C since 1970 – and 1.2C to 1.4C since the mid-1800s.
A strong El Niño event contributed to exceptionally high global temperatures early in the year, but record or near-record temperatures persisted despite the fading of El Niño in recent months.
Record global temperatures have been seen across many regions of the planet over the first nine months of the year.
Global temperatures are closely aligned with the projections from climate models.
Global sea ice extent is currently at record lows and Antarctic sea ice has spent much of the year at near-record lows – second only to those seen in 2023.
The figure below shows Carbon Brief’s estimate of where 2024 temperatures will end up in each of the groups, based on the year to date and expected El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) conditions in the tropical Pacific for the remainder of the year.
The dots reflect the best estimate, while the whiskers show the two sigma (95%) confidence interval of the projections. The prior record year (2023 in all groups) is shown by the coloured square. https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/state-of-the-climate/24-Q3/projections.htmlCarbon Brief’s project of 2024 annual global average surface temperatures for each group, along with 95% confidence intervals and prior record (2023) values. 1.5C above pre-industrial (1850-1900) levels is shown by a dashed line. The average projection represents a composite of all five records following the WMO approach. Chart by Carbon Brief.
In all cases, the projected global average temperature for 2024 is virtually certain to exceed the prior record set in 2023.
Three of the five groups (Hadley, Berkeley and Copernicus/ECMWF) are very likely to show annual temperatures exceeding 1.5C above pre-industrial levels (defined here as the 1850-1900 period), while the NASA record has a roughly 40% chance of exceeding 1.5C. Only NOAA’s record is unlikely to show global temperatures above 1.5C this year.
These differences in warming since pre-industrial across different datasets primarily result from choice of ocean records used, as well as differences in approaches to filling in gaps between observations in the early part of the records (e.g. pre-1900s). It reflects the uncertainty in the degree of warming since the mid-1800s, with projected 2024 temperatures ranging from 1.44C (NOAA) to 1.61C (Berkeley Earth).
The figure also provides a composite average of the five different datasets, following the approach used in the sixth assessment report (AR6) from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and by the WMO. Carbon Brief’s analysis finds that 2024 will be the first year above 1.5C in the composite average.
This provides a way to determine the first year where we can reasonably say that the world has passed that warming level – even though 2023 exceeded 1.5C in the Berkeley Earth dataset and 2024 will not exceed 1.5C in the NOAA dataset.
(It is important to note that exceeding 1.5C in a single year is not equivalent to breaching the Paris Agreement limit. The goal is generally considered to refer to long-term warming – typically over two or three decades – rather than annual temperatures that include the short-term influence of natural fluctuations in the climate, such as El Niño.)
The figure below shows the annual temperatures from each of these groups between 1970 and present, with the year-to-date 2024 temperatures for each record shown as individual points. https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/state-of-the-climate/24-Q3/records_2024_to_date.htmlAnnual global average surface temperatures from NASA GISTEMP, NOAA GlobalTemp, Hadley/UEA HadCRUT5, Berkeley Earth and Copernicus/ECMWF (lines), along with 2024 temperatures to date (January-September, coloured shapes). Each series is aligned by using a 1981-2010 baseline, with warming since pre-industrial based on the IPCC AR6 estimate of warming between pre-industrial and the 1981-2010 period. Chart by Carbon Brief.
There is strong agreement between the different temperature records, with all of them showing approximately 1C warming between 1970 and present. Global temperatures have been around 1.3 above pre-industrial levels in recent years (with a range of 1.2C to 1.4C across the different temperature datasets, reflecting that the differences between them are larger in the 1800s and early 1900s).
As the chart below shows, 2024 (purple line) started out remarkably warm as a result of a strong El Niño event that built in 2023 (red) and peaked near the beginning of the year.
However, global temperatures have remained quite elevated despite the fading of El Niño conditions, setting records through June and remaining quite close to 2023’s exceptional highs in recent months.
Overall, 2024 has set or tied all-time records for seven of the 10 months available to-date in the ERA5 record. (This record uses weather model-based reanalysis to combine lots of different data sources over time.)https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/state-of-the-climate/24-Q3/monthly_global_temperature_anomalies_Q3_2024.htmlTemperatures for each month from 1940 to 2024 from Copernicus/ECMWF ERA5. Anomalies plotted with respect to a 1850-1900 baseline. Chart by Carbon Brief.
While human emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases are responsible for effectively all of the Earth’s long-term warming, temperatures in any given year are strongly influenced by short-term variations in the Earth’s climate that are typically associated with El Niño and La Niña events.
These fluctuations in temperature between the ocean and atmosphere in the tropical Pacific help make some individual years warmer and some cooler.
The figure below shows a range of different ENSO forecast models produced by different scientific groups. The values shown are sea surface temperature variations in the tropical Pacific – the El Niño 3.4 region – for three-month periods.
El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) forecast models for overlapping three-month periods in the Niño3.4 region (July, August, September – JAS – and so on) for the remainder of 2024 and then into the spring and summer of 2025. Credit: CPC/IRI ENSO forecast.
Most models expect neutral conditions in the tropical Pacific, with only a few crossing the -0.5C Niño 3.4 sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly that represents the development of a formal La Niña event.
This should result in relatively cooler temperatures in 2025, though it is possible that the year ends up warmer than anticipated given the continuation of high temperatures in recent months – despite the absence of El Niño conditions.
Large areas of record warmth
While global average temperatures are an important indicator of changes to the broader climate system over time as a result of human activities, these impacts will differ as some regions experience more rapid warming or extreme heat events than is reflected in the global average.
The figure below shows the parts of the world that saw record warm or cold temperatures over the first three quarters of 2024 (January through to September) in the Berkeley Earth dataset compared to all prior years since global temperature record began in 1850.
Map of year-to-date (January-September) regions that set new records (warmest through to fifth warmest). Note that no regions set cold records for the year-to-date in 2024. Credit: Berkeley Earth
Notably, no area on Earth saw record cold (or even the second, third, fourth or fifth coldest temperatures on record). Nearly all of Central America and large parts of South America saw their warmest year to date on record, as did much of eastern Europe, Africa, China, south-east Asia, and Korea.
The figure below shows the temperature anomaly over the first nine months of the year compared to the 1951-80 baseline period used by Berkeley Earth. Warming was particularly pronounced over land regions, with many areas already showing warming of 1.5C or 2C above that baseline.
Map of year-to-date (January-September) global surface temperatures. Anomalies are shown relative to the 1951-80 period following the convention used by Berkeley Earth. Credit: Berkeley Earth
Temperatures are tracking climate model projections
Climate models provide physics-based estimates of future warming given different assumptions about future emissions, greenhouse gas concentrations and other climate-influencing factors.
The figure below shows the range of individual models forecasts featured in AR6 – known collectively as the CMIP6 models – between 1970 and 2030, with grey shading and the average projection across all the models shown in black. Individual observational temperature records are represented by coloured lines.https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/state-of-the-climate/24-Q3/model_obs_comps_Q3_2024.htmlTwelve-month average global average surface temperatures from CMIP6 models and observations between 1970 and 2024. Models use SSP2-4.5 forcings after 2015.Anomalies plotted with respect to a 1981-2010 baseline. Chart by Carbon Brief.
While global temperatures were running below the pace of warming projected by climate models for much of the period between 2008 and 2022, the past two years have been closer to the model average.
However, the CMIP6 models may be biassed a bit too warm, with a subset of “hot” models pushing up the average. The IPCC used an approach that weighted models based on how well they reproduced historical temperatures, rather than simply averaging all the models together.
Excluding these hotter models from the analysis results in observations over recent years much closer to the multi-model average and near the centre of the uncertainty range across all models. It also reveals that the past two years – 2023 and 2024 – have been near the upper end of the model range.https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/state-of-the-climate/24-Q3/model%20_obs_comps_filtered_Q3_2024.htmlTwelve-month average global average surface temperatures from CMIP5 models and observations between 1970 and 2024. Models use SSP2-4.5 forcings after 2015. Anomalies plotted with respect to a 1981-2010 baseline. Chart by Carbon Brief.
Record low global sea ice extent
Highly accurate observations of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice have been available since polar-observing satellites became available in the late 1970s.
Arctic sea ice extent during the first three-quarters of 2024 has been below or at the low end of the historical 1979-2010 range, but has not seen any record daily lows.
Antarctic sea ice, on the other hand, set new all-time low records for a few days in July and September, and has generally been the second lowest on record (after 2023) from June onwards.
The figure below shows both Arctic (red) and Antarctic (blue) sea ice extent in 2024, the historical range in the record between 1979 and 2010 (shaded areas) and the record lows (dotted black line).
Unlike global temperature records (which only report monthly averages), sea ice data is collected and updated on a daily basis, allowing sea ice extent to be viewed through to the present day.https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/state-of-the-climate/24-Q3/sea_ice.htmlArctic and Antarctic daily sea ice extent from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center. The bold lines show daily 2024 values, the shaded area indicates the two standard deviation range in historical values between 1979 and 2010. The dotted black lines show the record lows for each pole. Chart by Carbon Brief.
Global sea ice extent is estimated by combining both Arctic and Antarctic sea ice extent. The figure below shows global sea ice extent in each year, with 2024 shown in red. Currently global sea ice extent is at record-low levels, below the prior record for this date set in 2023.
Methodological note
A statistical multivariate regression model was used to estimate the range of likely 2024 annual temperatures for each group that provides a temperature record. This model used the average temperature over the first six months of the year, the average ENSO 3.4 region value during the first nine months of the year and the average predicted ENSO 3.4 value during the last three months of the year to estimate the annual temperatures.
The model was trained on the relationship between these variables and annual temperatures over the period of 1950-2023. The model then uses this fit to predict both the most likely 2024 annual value for each group, as well as the 95% confidence interval. The predicted ENSO 3.4 region values for the last three months of 2024 are taken from the IRI plume forecast.
The percent likelihood of different year ranks for 2024 is estimated by using the output of the regression model, assuming a normal distribution of results. This allows Carbon Brief to estimate what percent of possible 2024 annual values fall above and below the temperatures of prior years for each group, as well as the likelihood of the year exceeding 1.5C in each record.
A resident tries to fight a wildfire burning on September 17, 2024 in Marco de Canaveses, Portugal. (Photo: Octavio Passos/Getty Images)
A new report contained “the bleakest news possible, especially with a climate denier U.S. president in office for the next four years,” said one climate scientist.
A day after U.S. voters elected climate-denying Republican Donald Trump in the presidential race, soon ushering in an administration that is sure to expand fossil fuel drilling, the European Union’s Earth observation agency announced that 2024 is “virtually certain” to be the hottest year on record and to hit a worrying temperature milestone.
The year is expected to be the first on record in which the temperature is more than 1.5°C hotter than before the Industrial Revolution, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service (CCCS). The Paris climate agreement of 2015 urged countries to curb greenhouse gas emissions with the goal of limiting planetary heating to 1.5°C by the end of the century.
Over the past 12 months, said CCCS, global temperatures were 1.6°C warmer than the yearly average from 1850-1900.
“The average temperature anomaly for the rest of 2024 would have to drop to almost zero for 2024 to not be the warmest year,” said CCCS.
Last month was the second-hottest October ever recorded, with temperatures 1.65°C higher than preindustrial levels. It was the 15th month in the past 16 to be hotter than 1.5°C over preindustrial temperatures.
While a single year above the 1.5°C mark does not necessarily indicate that the Paris climate goal is out of reach, CCCS director Carlo Buontempo said the planet has “never had to cope with a climate as warm as the current one.”
“This inevitably pushes our ability to respond to extreme events—and adapt to a warmer world—to the absolute limit,” he told The Guardian.
Climate scientist Bill McGuire called the Copernicus report “the bleakest news possible, especially with a climate denier U.S. president in office for the next four years.”
Trump has pledged to expand fossil fuel extraction and do away with climate regulations introduced by the Biden administration, telling oil executives he would do so if they contributed $1 billion to his campaign in what was described as a quid pro quo.
The CCCS—which based its analysis on billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft, and weather stations—noted in its report that October saw numerous extreme weather events tied to the warming planet. Heavy rains led to severe flash flooding in Spain, killing more than 200 people. Above average precipitation was also seen in Norway, France, China, southern Brazil, and parts of Australia, while Florida faced Hurricane Milton just two weeks after Hurricane Helene killed more than 230 people.
The World Meteorological Organization last week announced that carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere are accumulating faster than at any other time in human history, rising more than 10% in the last two decades.
“The most effective solution to address the climate challenges is a global commitment on emissions,” Buontempo told The Guardian.
BBC journalist Navin Singh Khadka said on the news network that if the 1.5°C breach continues “in the long term, then we are warned there will be catastrophic consequences.”
Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
Scientists engage in civil disobedience on the steps of the Congress of Deputies in Madrid, Spain on April 6, 2022. (Photo: Scientist Rebellion)
“I expect a semi-dystopian future with substantial pain and suffering for the people of the Global South,” one expert said.
Nearly 80% of top-level climate scientists expect that global temperatures will rise by at least 2.5°C by 2100, while only 6% thought the world would succeed in limiting global heating to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, a survey published Wednesday by The Guardian revealed.
Nearly three-quarters blamed world leaders’ insufficient action on a lack of political will, while 60% said that corporate interests such as fossil fuel companies were interfering with progress.
“I expect a semi-dystopian future with substantial pain and suffering for the people of the Global South,” one South African scientist told The Guardian. “The world’s response to date is reprehensible—we live in an age of fools.”
“What blew me away was the level of personal anguish among the experts who have dedicated their lives to climate research.”
The survey was conducted by The Guardian‘s Damian Carrington, who reached out to every expert who had served as a senior author on an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report since 2018. Out of 843 scientists whose contact information was available, 383 responded.
He then asked them how high they thought temperatures would rise by 2100: 77% predicted at least 2.5°C and nearly half predicted 3°C or more.
The key question was how high they thought global temperature will rise by 2100. Almost 80% of the respondents said at least 2.5C. Almost half said at least 3C. That is a catastrophic level of heating. Just 6% thought 1.5C would be achieved. 3/n pic.twitter.com/GHzRdLfNAk
“What blew me away was the level of personal anguish among the experts who have dedicated their lives to climate research,” Carrington wrote on social media. “Many used words like hopeless, broken, infuriated, scared, overwhelmed.”
The 1.5°C target was agreed to as the most ambitious goal of the Paris agreement of 2015, in which world leaders pledged to keep warming to “well below” 2°C. However, policies currently in place would put the world on track for 3°C, and unconditional commitments under the Paris agreement for 2.9°C.
The survey comes on the heels of the hottest year on record, which already saw a record-breaking Canadian wildfire season as well as extreme, widespread heatwaves and deadly floods. The firstfourmonths of 2024 have also been the hottest of their respective months on record, and the year has already seen the fourth global bleaching event for coral reefs.
“They can say they don’t care, but they can’t say they didn’t know.”
“I think we are headed for major societal disruption within the next five years,” Gretta Pecl of the University of Tasmania told The Guardian. “[Authorities] will be overwhelmed by extreme event after extreme event, food production will be disrupted. I could not feel greater despair over the future.”
Scientists said that governments and companies that profit from the burning of fossil fuels had prevented action. Many also blamed global inequality and the refusal of the wealthy world to step up, both in terms of reducing their own emissions and helping climate vulnerable nations adapt.
“The tacit calculus of decision-makers, particularly in the Anglosphere—U.S., Canada, U.K., Australia—but also Russia and the major fossil fuel producers in the Middle East, is driving us into a world in which the vulnerable will suffer, while the well-heeled will hope to stay safe above the waterline,” Stephen Humphreys at the London School of Economics said.
Despite their grim predictions, many of the scientists remained committed to researching and speaking out.
“We keep doing it because we have to do it, so [the powerful] cannot say that they didn’t know,” Ruth Cerezo-Mota, who works on climate modeling at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, told The Guardian. “We know what we’re talking about. They can say they don’t care, but they can’t say they didn’t know.”
Others found hope in the climate activism and awareness of younger generations, and in the finding that each extra tenth of a degree of warming avoided protects 140 million people from extreme temperatures.
“I regularly face moments of despair and guilt of not managing to make things change more rapidly, and these feelings have become even stronger since I became a father,” said Henri Waisman of France’s Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations. “But, in these moments, two things help me: remembering how much progress has happened since I started to work on the topic in 2005 and that every tenth of a degree matters a lot—this means it is still useful to continue the fight.”
Peter Cox of the University of Exeter added: “Climate change will not suddenly become dangerous at 1.5°C—it already is. And it will not be ‘game over’ if we pass 2°C, which we might well do.”
“I’m not despairing, I’m not giving up. I’m pissed off and more determined to fight for a better world.”
Many of the scientists who still saw a hope of keeping 1.5°C alive pinned it on the speeding rollout and falling prices of climate-friendly technologies like renewable energy and electric vehicles. Also on Wednesday, energy think thank Ember reported that 30% of global electricity came from renewables in 2023 and predicted that the year would be the “pivot” after which power sector emissions would start to fall. Experts also said that abandoning fossil fuels has many side benefits such as cleaner air and better public health. Though even the more optimistic scientists were wary about the unpredictable nature of the climate crisis.
“I am convinced that we have all the solutions needed for a 1.5°C path and that we will implement them in the coming 20 years,” Henry Neufeldt of the United Nations’ Copenhagen Climate Center told The Guardian. “But I fear that our actions might come too late and we cross one or several tipping points.”
Several scientists gave recommendations for things that people could do to move the needle on climate. Humphreys suggested “civil disobedience” while one French scientist said people should “fight for a fairer world.”
“All of humanity needs to come together and cooperate—this is a monumental opportunity to put differences aside and work together,” Louis Verchot, based at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture in Colombia, told The Guardian. “Unfortunately climate change has become a political wedge issue… I wonder how deep the crisis needs to become before we all start rowing in the same direction.”
The publication of The Guardian‘s survey prompted other climate scientists to share their thoughts.
“As many of the scientists pointed out, the uncertainty in future temperature change is not a physical science question: It is a question of the decisions people choose to make,” Texas Tech University climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe wrote on social media. “We are not experts in that; And we have little reason to feel positive about those, since we have been warning of the risks for decades.”
Aaron Thierry, a graduate researcher at the Cardiff School of Social Sciences, pointed out that The Guardian‘s results were consistent with other surveys of scientific opinion, such as one published in Nature in the lead-up to COP26, in which 60% of IPCC scientists said they expected 3°C of warming or more by 2100.
2/n Today's findings are similar to those from a survey by @jefftollef for @Nature ahead of #COP26
James Dyke of the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute argued that there was room for scientists to share more negative thoughts without succumbing to or encouraging defeatism.
“I hear the argument that we must temper these messages because we don’t want people to despair and give up. But I’m not despairing, I’m not giving up. I’m pissed off and more determined to fight for a better world,” Dyke said on social media.
NASA climate scientist Peter Kalmus shared the article with a plea to “please start listening.”
“Elected and corporate ‘leaders’ continue to prioritize their personal power and wealth at the cost of irreversible loss of essentially everything, even as this irreversible loss comes more and more into focus. I see this as literally a form of insanity,” Kalmus wrote, adding that “capitalism tends to elevate the worst among us into the seats of power.”
However, he took issue with the idea that a future of unchecked climate change would be only “semi-dystopian.”
“We’re also at risk of losing any gradual bending toward progress, and equity, and compassion, and love,” Kalmus said. “All social and cultural struggles must recognize this deep intersection with the climate struggle.”
[dizzy: It is generally accepted by knowledgeable parties that 2.5C is “locked-in” in the sense that emissions already made will cause it. We need immediate reduction in climate heating gases by abandoning fossil fuels. Politicians worldwide are neglecting this necessary action and are indeed creating a worse situation by promoting fossil fuels through widespread and generous subsidies.]
14/5/24 I’m trying to verify the “locked-in” claim that I make above. It’s not particularly supported by this report.
If greenhouse gas emissions stopped but greenhouse gases stayed at a fixed level then there’d be another ~0.5-0.6°C of slow warming in the pipeline, but in reality CO₂ would fall due to natural carbon sinks once emissions stop and largely cancel out this warming.
Aerosols mask ~0.6°C of warming, but even in the unlikely scenario of their sudden elimination models show only ~0.2-0.4°C of extra warming by 2100 as a result. A gradual partial phase-out of aerosol emissions could limit this unmasking effect to ~0.1-0.2°C spread over time, and cuts in non-CO₂ greenhouse gases like methanes could entirely counteract aerosol removal, minimising its impact.
Overall this likely reduces “locked-in” warming from the climate lag and aerosols to a negligible amount on top of the current (2021) warming of ~1.2°C – in contrast to the extra ~1.4°C sometimes claimed – and any short-term warming from aerosol reductions can be reduced and compensated for by reducing other short-lived greenhouse gases like methane.
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All of this is quite academic of course – politicians do not intend to address global warming and instead intend to continue trashing the planet.
