The earth is on course to experience its hottest year in recorded history in 2024, surpassing the previous record set just last year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced. This new temperature milestone highlights the worsening impact of human-driven climate change and coincides with global sea ice cover falling to its second-lowest level on record—another alarming indicator of a warming planet.
Although complete data for the year is not yet available, NOAA has stated there is a greater than 99% chance that 2024 will eclipse last year’s record. From January through November, global temperatures were 2.3°F (1.28°C) above the 20th-century average. Every continent registered its warmest year on record, except Asia, which recorded its second-warmest.
The findings from NOAA present a grim challenge for global efforts to limit temperature rises to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, a target established in the Paris Climate Agreement. NOAA’s data follows similar conclusions from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, which suggested that the 1.5°C threshold was temporarily breached this year. The announcement comes as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House next month, having pledged to dismantle climate policies implemented by President Joe Biden. Trump has also vowed to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement, a move that would undermine international collaboration to combat the rising temperatures fuelling severe droughts, heatwaves, wildfires, and increasingly destructive storms.
Earlier this year, climate scientists had already predicted that 2024 would set a new temperature record, but recent trends have surpassed their expectations. Zeke Hausfather, a research scientist at Berkeley Earth, explained that global temperatures remained unusually high even after the dissipation of the El Niño weather pattern that began in 2023.
“This represents growing evidence that the spike that started in 2023 doesn’t seem to be purely temporary (even if part of it is attributable to El Niño),” Hausfather wrote. “We should expect the apparent acceleration in warming observed in recent years to continue.”
The alarming data has significant implications for human health and ecosystems. Assistant Secretary for Health Adm. Rachel Levine described the 2024 temperature record as a stark warning that nations are failing to tackle climate change effectively. “It’s possible that 2024 will actually be the coolest year we ever see in our lifetime,” she said during the American Geophysical Union conference in Washington. “That statistic resonates with people because of the heat-related health impacts we’re already seeing globally.”
While 2025 may bring slightly cooler conditions due to a possible La Niña weather pattern, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies Director Gavin Schmidt emphasised that the long-term trend for global temperatures is still upwards. On Thursday, the UK Met Office forecast that 2025 will likely rank among the three warmest years on record, with temperature increases expected to reach 1.41°C above pre-industrial levels.
Earlier this week, NOAA reported that the Arctic tundra has shifted from being a carbon “sink”—which absorbs and stores greenhouse gases—to a net emitter. The rapid warming, thawing permafrost, and intensifying wildfires in the region are releasing vast amounts of stored organic matter, further contributing to global warming.
