2024 will be the world's hottest year since records began, with extreme heat expected to last at least until the first few months of 2025, European Union scientists said on December 9.
The data from the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) comes two weeks after UN climate talks reached a $300 billion deal to tackle climate change, a package criticised by poorer nations as insufficient to cover the rising costs of climate-related disasters, Reuters reported.
C3S said data from January to November confirmed 2024 was now certain to be the hottest year on record and the first year that global average temperatures exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels of 1850-1900.
The previous hottest year on record was 2023.
Extreme weather swept across the world in 2024, with severe droughts hitting Italy and South America, deadly floods in Nepal, Sudan and Europe, heat waves in Mexico, Mali and Saudi Arabia killing thousands, and catastrophic storms in the US and depressions and typhoons in the Philippines.
Scientific studies have confirmed the traces of human-caused climate change in all of these disasters.
Last month ranked as the second hottest November on record after November 2023.
"We are still close to record highs in global temperatures and that is likely to remain the case for at least the next few months," said Copernicus climate researcher Julien Nicolas.
CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels are the main cause of climate change.
Cutting emissions to net zero – as many governments have pledged to do – would prevent global warming from getting worse. Yet despite these green pledges, global CO2 emissions are set to hit a record high this year.
Scientists are also monitoring whether a La Nina weather pattern – associated with cooling ocean surface temperatures – could form by 2025.
The latest forecast shows that the possibility of La Nina appearing this winter has decreased. The November 29 forecast from the Climate Prediction Center of the US National Weather Service (NWS) shows that the possibility of La Nina appearing this year has decreased, reinforcing previous forecasts that La Nina will be weaker and shorter.
La Nina can cool global temperatures in the short term, although it will not halt the underlying long-term warming trend caused by emissions. The world is currently in ENSO-neutral conditions after El Nino ended earlier this year.
According to the Vietnam National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting, the probability of La Nina occurring in the last month of 2024 and early 2025 has decreased significantly compared to previous forecasts, about 50-55%.
During a typical La Nina, winters are usually colder.
