The global temperature for the January-August period was recorded at 0.70 degrees Celsius above the 1991-2020 average and the European climate change service ‘Copernicus’ said on Friday (September 6, 2024) that it is increasingly likely that 2024 will be the hottest year ever.
According to new information from the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), the month of August was the joint warmest on record globally (along with August 2023), with an average surface air temperature of 16.82 °C, 0.71 °C above the 1991-2020 average for the month.
This is 1.51 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, making it the 13th month in the last 14 months when the global average surface air temperature was 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
C3S scientists said the global average temperature anomaly from January 1 to today (January-August) of the current year is 0.70 degrees Celsius warmer than the 1991-2020 average, the highest on record for this period, and 0.23 degrees Celsius warmer than the same period in 2023.
To prevent 2024 from surpassing 2023 as the hottest year, the average (temperature) of the remaining months would have to be brought down by at least 0.30 °C.
Samantha Burgess, deputy director of C3S, said, ‘During the last three months of 2024, the world has experienced the hottest June and August, the hottest days and the hottest summers on record. This series of record temperatures is raising the possibility of 2024 being the hottest year on record.’
Published at : 07 Sep 2024 01:12 PM (IST)