Highest recorded temperatures supercharged extreme weather – with worse to come, EU data shows

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/24110139

Summary

In 2024, global temperatures rose 1.6°C above preindustrial levels, surpassing the 1.5°C Paris Agreement threshold for the first time.

The rise, driven by fossil fuel emissions and intensified by El Niño, caused extreme weather, record heatwaves, and widespread human suffering.

Experts warn the planet is on track for catastrophic 2.7°C heating by 2100 unless emissions drop 45% by 2030.

Despite renewable energy advances, 2024 saw record carbon emissions.

  • humanspiral@lemmy.ca
    3·
    9 hours ago

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-10/hottest-year-on-record-2024-in-photos-and-charts/104770946 has more itemized details of year’s impacts. Crossposting comment from r/australia:

    From “water report” details:

    In 2024, months with record-low precipitation were 38% more common than during the 1995-2005 baseline period, while record-high 24h rainfall extremes were 52% more frequent.

    Water-related disasters caused major damage in 2024. They caused over 8,700 deaths, displaced 40 million people, and inflicted more than US$550 billion in damages. Flash floods, landslides, and tropical cyclones were the worst types of disasters in terms of casualties and economic damage.

    The likelihood of monthly records set should go down each year, in a non global warming world, because the bar always gets higher. The damages number is a big insurance factor, and the data does not include forest fires.

    A missing topic in OP is that Arctic sea ice extent and volume are at extreme record low levels currently, that may lead to a blue north pole next summer. Hudson and Baffin Bay and Labrador sea being the main record low spots also means an early spring for Greenland and more melting on its west coast.

    Arctic summer temperatures have been pretty stable since 2016. Ice extent and volume keeps declining because current temperatures are enough for ocean to get warmer each year both earlier and later in melt season that delays and weakens total freezing.