After the first 6 months of the year that marked new primates of heat, 2024 is expected to close with +1,57°C. Although the second half will be more “fresh” than the same months of 2023
Carbon Brief’s analysis of global warming
There is a 95% probability – virtual certainty – that this year will beat the global warming record from 2023. Each month, from January to June, was the hottest ever, bringing the stripe of consecutive months that recorded the absolute importance of heat to 13. Even if the second half should not continue on this trend, between the weakening of El Niño and the likely emergence of its “cold” twin, the Niña, in the late autumn, this will probably be enough to make 2024 the year with the most marked thermal anomaly ever recorded so far.
This is stated by an analysis of global warming in 2024 by climate scientist Zeke Hausfather for Carbon Brief, based on data provided by the Copernicus/ECMWF ERA5 system. Today, global warming in 2024 is moving above +1.6°C, while 2023 closed, according to Copernicus, with a thermal anomaly of +1.48°C. The year’s second half will most likely bring the 2024 figure down: from July we should break the strip of consecutive record hot months. All records were set only last year. 2023 and 2024, therefore, will remain two outliers, significantly warmer than any previous year.
In detail, Hausfather’s projections set the global warming for 2024 at +1,57°C as the median estimate, with the lower part of the fork just crossing the data for 2023. It will therefore be a record “even if – as the projection implicitly assumes – the remaining months of 2024 will be below the records set in 2023. Because the first six months of the year have been so hot – about 1.63°C above pre-industrial levels – the second half of year should be relatively cool (below 1.3°C) so that the year does not exceed 2023,” the scientist emphasizes.
A forecast that revises very upward was made in December 2023 by the British MET Office. The London Institute set the global average temperature for 2024 in a fork between +1,34°C and +1,58°C, with a central estimate of +1,46°C. That is, basically, in line with the data for 2023.
We are, therefore, living with a reasonable probability of our first solar year at more than 1.5 degrees (if, instead, we consider the last 12 months we are far beyond: between July 2023 and June 2024, we have reached +1,64°C). This does not mean we have exceeded the threshold set by the Paris Agreement, which is calculated as the average of global temperature over 30 years.
