January 2024 warmest on record: European climate agency

January 2024 was the warmest on record, with global temperatures exceeding the 1.5-degree Celsius threshold, emphasizing the need for greenhouse gas emissions reductions.

The world last month experienced the warmest January on record, with the global mean temperature for the past 12 months exceeding the 1.5-degree Celsius threshold, according to the European climate agency.

However, this does not imply a permanent breach of the 1.5-degree Celsius limit specified in the Paris agreement, as it refers to long-term warming over many years.

Every month since June last year has been the warmest such month on record.

Scientists attribute the exceptional warming to the combined effects of El Niño -- a period of abnormal warming of surface waters in the central Pacific Ocean -- and human-caused climate change.

The global average temperature in January was 1.66 degrees Celsius above the January average for 1850-1900, the designated pre-industrial reference period.

With an average temperature of 13.14 degrees Celsius, January 2024 was 0.12 degrees Celsius warmer than the previous warmest January in 2020, the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said.

Scientists at C3S said the global mean temperature for the past 12 months (February 2023-January 2024) was the highest on record and 1.52 degrees Celsius above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average.