The first half of 2024 has experienced unprecedented heat, setting the year on a trajectory to potentially become the hottest on record. According to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), in its monthly report said that all six months (2024) have surpassed pre-industrial temperature averages by at least 1.5°C. This significant warming raises alarms about nearing climate tipping points.
June 2024 was particularly hot, with an average surface air temperature of 16.66°C, 1.5°C above the pre-industrial average and 0.67°C warmer than the 1991-2020 average. This broke the previous record set just last year, making it the 13th consecutive month of record-breaking global temperatures and the 12th in a row above the 1.5°C mark.
“June marks the 13th consecutive month of record-breaking global temperatures and the 12th in a row above 1.5°C with respect to pre-industrial. This is more than a statistical oddity and it highlights a large and continuing shift in our climate,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of C3S.
The ramifications of these high temperatures are evident in the extreme weather events witnessed globally, including heatwaves, droughts, floods, and tropical cyclones. In Europe, June’s warmth led to severe floods in countries such as Germany, Italy, France, and Switzerland, with flash floods occurring even in remote Alpine areas.
Globally, regions like southeast Europe, Turkey, eastern Canada, the western United States, and northern Siberia experienced significantly warmer-than-average temperatures. The western U.S. is currently enduring extreme heat wave conditions, with Las Vegas recording a high of 47.8°C on July 7.
Antarctica also saw a reduction in sea-ice extent, which was 12% below average—the second lowest June average on record. Meanwhile, the world’s oceans have been undergoing a prolonged period of elevated sea-surface temperatures (SST), with June marking the 15th consecutive month of record-breaking SSTs.
Following reports findings, Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College London’s Grantham Institute, emphasized the urgency of addressing fossil fuel emissions. “El Nino is a naturally occurring phenomenon that will always come and go. We can’t stop El Nino, but we can stop burning oil, gas, and coal,” she said.
The combination of human-caused climate change and natural phenomena like El Nino has pushed global temperatures to new highs. Talking to social media, Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist with the Berkeley Earth climate monitoring group, predicted, “There is an approximately 95 per cent chance that 2024 beats 2023 to be the warmest year since global surface temperature records began in the mid-1800s.”
The warming trend has already had deadly consequences. Over 1,000 people died from extreme heat during the haj pilgrimage last month, with additional heat-related deaths reported in New Delhi. According to various reports over 40,000 cases of heatstroke cases were reported across India.
Copernicus’ latest data indicates that the average global temperature from July 2023 to June 2024 was 1.64°C higher than the pre-industrial average, setting a record for any 12-month period. As Copernicus senior climate scientist Nicolas Julien warned, “It’s a stark warning that we are getting closer to this very important limit set by the Paris Agreement. The global temperature continues to increase. It has at a rapid pace.”
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