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The warmest year on record

February 14, 2025 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

It came as no surprise that 2024 ended up as the warmest year on records. It was the hottest year since record keeping began in 1880. The global average temperature was 1.28 degrees Celsius (or 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit) above the 20th-century baseline period of 1951-1980. It was actually 1.47 degrees above the 1850-1900 average.

The Paris Climate Agreement has a goal to keep the global average temperature increase below 1.5 degrees Celsius over the long term. Long term is specified because for more than half of 2024, average temperatures were more than 1.5 degrees above the baseline.

The temperature of an individual year can be influenced by various natural climate fluctuations, such as the presence of an El Niño or a La Niña condition in the Pacific, or volcanic eruptions. A strong El Niño began in 2023 and continued throughout much of 2024. That El Niño has abated, so it is no longer a factor in the global climate condition.

The global temperature is determined using surface air temperature data collected from thousands of meteorological stations as well as sea surface temperature data collected by ships and buoy-based instruments.

When the climate changes, it is observed first in the global mean temperature. Then there are changes seen on a continental scale and then at the regional scale. Finally, changes are observable at the local level. These changes are becoming more and more common as people’s everyday weather experiences become different from any they had encountered before.

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2024 Was the Warmest Year on Record

Photo, posted August 26, 2015, courtesy of Saskia Madlener / NASA via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

The Hottest Summer | Earth Wise

October 13, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

It was a very rainy and relatively cool summer in much of New England as well as in New York’s Capital Region, where Earth Wise originates. Despite that fact, according to NASA scientists, the summer of 2023 was the Earth’s hottest since global record keeping began in 1880.

The months of June, July, and August taken together were .41 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than any other summer on record as well as being 2.1 degrees warmer than the average summer between 1951 and 1980.

The record summer heat was marked by heatwaves in South America, Japan, Europe, and the US. The heat exacerbated wildfires in Canada that dumped smoke across much of the northern tier of our country and also led to severe rainfall in Europe. All sorts of temperature records were set in places across the globe.

According to NASA, exceptionally high sea surface temperatures, fueled in part by the reemergence of El Niño in the Pacific, were a major factor in the summer’s record warmth.

The record-breaking heat of this summer continues a long-term trend of warming. Scientists around the world have been tracking the warming that is driven primarily by human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. The combination of this background warming and the marine heatwaves set the stage for new temperature records. The El Niño was enough to tip the scales.

In the current environment, heat waves will last longer, be hotter, and be more punishing. The atmosphere can hold more water producing hot and humid conditions that are harder for the human body to endure.

Scientists are expecting the biggest impacts of El Niño in the early parts of next year. We can expect to see extreme weather of many kinds over the next year.

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NASA Announces Summer 2023 Hottest on Record

Photo, posted June 8, 2023, courtesy of Anthony Quintano via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

The Hottest September | Earth Wise

November 5, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Here’s a news item that is like many other recent news items: September 2020 was the hottest September since 1880, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The warm September is a part of a year that so far is poised to be at least the second hottest year in the 141-year climate record.

The ten warmest Septembers on record have all occurred since 2005, and the seven warmest Septembers have occurred in the past seven years.

So far, the year-to-date average global temperature has been the second warmest on record, being just 0.07 degrees Fahrenheit lower than the record year-to-date temperature set in 2016. Expectations are that 2020 will end up somewhere among the three warmest years on record for the globe.

September was warm in many places around the world. California and Oregon had their warmest September ever. Europe had its warmest September on record, Asia had its second warmest September on record as did Australia and South America.

So far, it has been the hottest year-to-date on record in Europe, Asia, and the Gulf of Mexico. No land or ocean areas anywhere had record-cold year-to-date temperatures.

Global temperatures represent an average over the entire surface of the planet. The fact that the global temperature is now nearly one Celsius degree above the 20th century average means that a vast amount of heat has been added in order to warm all the oceans, atmosphere, and land by that much. So, every uptick in global temperature is a big deal.

Meanwhile, the average Arctic sea ice coverage for September was the second smallest on record. The 14 smallest minimum annual sea ice extents have all occurred in the past 14 years.

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Earth just had its hottest September on record

Photo, posted September 2, 2020, courtesy of Tim Vrtiska via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.