EU’s Copernicus: Global average temperature for past 12 months highest on record
The global-average temperature for the past 12 months – September 2023 to August 2024 – is the highest on record for any 12-month period, the European Copernicus Climate Change Service said on September 6 in its latest monthly Climate Change Bulletin.
The global-average temperature for the past 12 months was 0.76°C above the 1991–2020 average and 1.64°C above the 1850–1900 pre-industrial average.
August 2024 was the joint-warmest August globally (together with August 2023), with an average ERA5 surface air temperature of 16.82°C, 0.71°C above the 1991-2020 average for August.
August 2024 was 1.51°C above the pre-industrial level and is the 13th month in a 14-month period for which the global-average surface air temperature exceeded 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
The global-average temperature for Boreal summer 2024 (June–August) was the highest on record, at 0.69°C above the 1991-2020 average for these three months, surpassing the previous record from June–August 2023 (0.66°C).
The year-to-date (January–August 2024) global-average temperature anomaly is 0.70°C above the 1991-2020 average, which is the highest on record for this period and 0.23°C warmer than the same period in 2023.
“The average anomaly for the remaining months of this year would need to drop by at least 0.30°C for 2024 not to be warmer than 2023. This has never happened in the entire ERA5 dataset, making it increasingly likely that 2024 is going to be the warmest year on record,” the Copernicus Climate Change Service said.
The average temperature for European land for August 2024 was 1.57°C above the 1991-2020 average for August, making the month the second warmest August on record for Europe after August 2022, which was 1.73°C above average.
European temperatures were most above average over southern and eastern Europe, but below average over northwestern parts of Ireland and the United Kingdom, Iceland, the west coast of Portugal, and southern Norway.
Outside Europe, temperatures were most above average over eastern Antarctica, Texas, Mexico, Canada, northeast Africa, Iran, China, Japan, and Australia.
Temperatures were below average over far eastern Russia and Alaska, the eastern United States, parts of southern South America, Pakistan and the Sahel.
The average temperature European land for summer (June–August) 2024 was the highest on record for the season at 1.54°C above the 1991-2020 average, exceeding the previous record from 2022 (1.34°C).
The average sea surface temperature (SST) for August 2024 over 60°S–60°N was 20.91°C, the second-highest value on record for the month, and only 0.07°C below August 2023.
The equatorial Pacific had below-average temperatures, indicating a developing La Niña, but SSTs across the oceans remained unusually, the report said.
(Photo: Clive Leviev-Sawyer)
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