EU climate monitor says 2024 ‘certain’ to be hottest year on record
Al Jazeera
The Copernicus Climate Change Service says this year is sure to eclipse 2023 as the hottest yet.
Europe’s climate monitor says 2024 is “effectively certain” to be the hottest on record and the first year above the 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7F) climate benchmark, a critical threshold to protect the Earth from dangerously overheating.
The Copernicus Climate Change Service said on Monday an unprecedented spell of extraordinary heat had pushed average global temperatures so high between January and November that this year was sure to eclipse 2023 as the hottest yet.
“At this point, it is effectively certain that 2024 is going to be the warmest year on record,” the European Union agency said in its monthly bulletin.
Copernicus uses billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations to aid its climate calculations.
Its records go back to 1940, but other sources of climate data – such as ice cores, tree rings, and coral skeletons – allow scientists to expand their conclusions using evidence from much further in the past.
