The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) of the European Union announced on Thursday that the world had just witnessed the hottest January on record, capping a string of extraordinary heatwaves fueled by climate change.
Last month was the warmest January in C3S records dating back to 1950, surpassing the previous record set in 2020.
The remarkable month followed 2023, which was the hottest year in global records dating back to 1850, as human-caused climate change and the El Nino weather phenomena, which warms the surface waters of the eastern Pacific Ocean, drove temperatures higher.
Since June, every month has been the hottest on record, when compared to the prior year’s comparable month.
Samantha Burgess, C3S Deputy Director, stated, “Not only is it the warmest January on record but we have also just experienced 12 months of more than 1.5 C (1.7 F) above the pre-industrial reference period”.
“Rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are the only way to stop global temperatures increasing”, Burgess continued.
According to US scientists, 2024 has a one-in-three chance of being hotter than last year and a 99% likelihood of being one of the top five warmest years on record.
The El Nino phenomenon began to diminish last month, and scientists predict it will move to the milder La Nina later this year. Nonetheless, January’s average global sea surface temperatures were the highest on record.
In the 2015 Paris Agreement, countries pledged to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius to avoid more severe and irreversible impacts.
Despite exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius in 12 months, the world has yet to violate the Paris Agreement objective, which refers to the average global temperature over decades.
Some scientists have stated that the objective is no longer achievable, but have urged governments to move quickly to reduce CO2 emissions to prevent overshooting the target, and the catastrophic heat, drought, and rising seas that will result to the greatest extent possible.
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