As predicted, last year beat 2023 as the warmest year on record, exceeding 1.5°C above pre-industrial temperatures according to several agencies, and with Canada ranking as one of the hottest places on Earth in 2024!
The world’s major climate organizations have finished their analysis of global temperatures for all of 2024, and their records all agree. NASA, NOAA, the World Meteorological Agency, the UK Met Office, the Japan Meteorological Agency, the Copernicus Climate Change Service, and Berkeley Earth — despite the differences in their data sets and analysis methods — all have concluded that last year, 2024, was the hottest year since record-keeping began over a century ago.
Global-Annual-Temperature-Records-NASA-Hadley-NOAA-Berkeley-2024
This graph of global yearly temperature averages from the year 1880 through 2024, shows that 2024 is the hottest in the entire 145-year record. Data from four different climate organizations — NASA, NOAA, Berkeley Earth and the Hadley Center — has been used here. While the sets do not exactly match, as they were derived from different sets of records and used different calculation methods, they are all very close and reveal the same trend and conclusions. Data from NOAA, Berkeley Earth, and the Hadley Center run off the left side of the graph, as their sets begin in 1850, while the direct comparison with NASA’s data only begins in the year 1880. (NASA/NOAA)
Furthermore, according to NASA, this new record comes after 15 consecutive months (June 2023 through August 2024) of monthly temperature records — an unprecedented heat streak.
“Not every year is going to break records, but the long-term trend is clear,” Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), said in the NASA press release. “We’re already seeing the impact in extreme rainfall, heat waves, and increased flood risk, which are going to keep getting worse as long as emissions continue.”
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Canada was (relatively) the hottest region on Earth
Much of the world experienced warmer than average temperatures in 2024, with many regions experiencing record heat throughout the year.
Global Land-Ocean Temp Anomalies map – 2024
Global temperature anomalies for 2024 (how much higher or lower temperatures were on a regional scale than the average temperature from 1991-2020) is shown on this map. Of all the regions of the world, the warmest temperature departures (darkest shades of red) were experienced across parts of Canada. (NOAA NCEI)
However, for all of 2024, the highest temperature departures were seen across parts of Canada.
Manitoba, Nunavut, central and northern Ontario, and most of Quebec all saw temperatures of between 2°C to 3°C above average. Similar temperatures were recorded in central and eastern Europe, in remote regions of Siberia, across the east coast of Japan, and throughout the north Pacific Ocean. However, parts of northern Quebec and the Arctic Archipelago experienced temperatures of 3-4°C above average, higher than anywhere else on the planet.
Global-Land-Ocean-Temp-Percentiles-map-2024
This map plots regional temperature averages across the globe for 2024 in historical context, showing if they are warmer or cooler than average, much warmer or much cooler than average, or if they experienced record-setting temperature departures. Much of the planet was much warmer than average according to the map, with many regions experiencing record warmth, including parts of Canada. (NOAA NCEI)
Additionally, according to NOAA, record heat was felt across Ontario, southern Quebec, and the Arctic Archipelago in 2024.
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Breaching a global temperature milestone?
Based on the analysis of Copernicus, the UK Met Office, and Berkeley Earth, this was also the first year where global temperatures exceeded 1.5°C above the pre-industrial average (from 1850-1900). Meanwhile, NASA’s records put 2024 at 1.47°C above pre-industrial, and according to NOAA it was 1.46°C above the 1850-1900 average, each just a proverbial hair’s breadth from that milestone.
“To put that in perspective, temperatures during the warm periods on Earth three million years ago — when sea levels were dozens of feet higher than today — were only around 3 degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial levels,” Gavin Schmidt explained. “We are halfway to Pliocene-level warmth in just 150 years.”
Global mean temp anomalies annual 1850-2024 vs preindustrial – Berkeley Earth
This plot of global temperature records, similar to the NASA/NOAA one posted above, shows annual temperature departures compared to pre-industrial levels rather than the 20th century average. In this context, four of the six data sets have 2024 exceeding 1.5°C, with only NASA’s and NOAA’s just falling short. (Berkeley Earth)
The 2015 Paris Climate Agreement set 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels as its “ambitious” goal for the upper limit of global temperature rise due to human-caused climate change. While attendees of the COP21 meeting originally sought a limit of 2.0°C, island nations of the world banded together to show how such a temperature rise would turn their people into climate refugees, as sea-level rise would put many of their lands under the ocean’s surface by that point. While 2024’s temperatures (relative to the late 1800s) do meet or exceed that 1.5°C milestone, it is only one year. The Paris Agreement seeks to keep the long-term, multi-decade temperature average from reaching that level.
“A single year exceeding 1.5°C above pre-industrial does not mean a breach of the Paris Agreement 1.5°C guard rail – that would require a temperature of at least 1.5°C on average over a longer period,” says Colin Morice of the UK Met Office. “However, it does show that the headroom to avoid an exceedance of 1.5°C, over a sustained period, is now wafer thin.”
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