In 2024, Earth's climate indicators broke numerous records, including the highest polluting gas concentrations, global mean sea level, ocean heat, and ice loss, according to the influential international State of the Climate report. Supported by contributions from nearly 600 scientists, the report underscores the scale and severity of impacts from the warming world, emphasizing urgent scientific attention to the changing environment.
The American Meteorological Society's 35th annual report highlights several disconcerting details about the overheating planet, according to EurekAlert. Earth's carbon pollution climbed to its highest level on record last year. The average amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the air is now about 50% higher than before industrial times. In recent years, CO2 has been rising much faster than it did decades ago, with one of the biggest jumps from 2023 to 2024.
The report also noted that several record temperatures were set during the warmest year on record. An intense heat wave in August pushed temperatures in the northwest North American Arctic to record highs, and Svalbard Airport in Norway reached a record monthly average temperature of over 52 degrees. In September, the Scandinavian country experienced temperatures above 86 degrees, setting a record for the latest occurrence of that level of heat there.
Scientific analyses reveal that average global surface temperatures in 2024 ranged from 1.1 to 1.3 F above the 1991-2020 average. This significant warmth, partly driven by a strong El Niño that began in mid-2023, led to global temperature records in each of the past two years, which last happened during the 2015-16 El Niño event. All major tracking datasets confirmed that each of the last 10 years rank among the 10 hottest years ever recorded.
"The State of the Climate report is an annual scientific landmark," American Meteorological Society President David J. Stensrud said. He noted that the worldwide collaboration brings together hundreds of experts from academia, public institutions, and beyond to produce a meticulously reviewed and authoritative assessment of the overheating planet.
"High-quality observations and findings from all over the world are incorporated, underscoring the vital importance of observations to monitor, and climate science to understand, our environment," Stensrud added. "The results affirm the reality of our changing climate, with 2024 global temperatures reaching record highs."
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The assessment also highlighted that the world's water cycle continues to intensify. "The global atmosphere contained the largest amount of water vapor on record, with over one-fifth of the globe recording their highest values in 2024," it stated. "Extreme rainfall, as characterized by the annual maximum daily rainfall over land, was the wettest on record."
Last year also featured record ocean heat and global sea level rise. Over the past half-century, the ocean has absorbed more than 90% of the extra energy trapped in Earth's system by polluting gases and other factors. In 2024, the global ocean heat content, measured down to 2,000 meters (6,562 feet), continuing its long-term rise.
The average sea level hit a high for the 13th consecutive year, standing about 4 inches above the 1993 baseline. This rising sea level is driven both by the warming ocean, which contributes about 1.5 millimeters (0.06 inches) annually, and melting ice sheets and glaciers, which add roughly 2.1 millimeters (0.08 inches) each year.
The report also noted that glaciers continued to shrink in 2024, with all 58 global reference glaciers losing ice for the second year in a row. This marked the greatest average ice loss recorded in the past 55 years. In South America, Venezuela lost all its glaciers, and Colombia's Conejeras glacier was declared extinct.
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