March 2024 shatters temperature records, averaging 1.68°C above the pre-industrial era baseline, making the past 12 months the hottest on record globally, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
Following July 2023’s peak as the hottest month ever recorded, each subsequent month has consecutively broken its own temperature record. March 2024 continued this alarming trend, at 1.68°C warmer than the historical average for March during the pre-industrial climate era of 1850-1900, the Copernicus Climate Change Service reported April 9.
This new peak in March contributes to an unprecedented 12-month stretch, with global temperatures averaging 1.58°C higher than 19th-century levels, before the widespread impact of fossil fuel combustion, deforestation, and intensive agriculture.
The uninterrupted sequence of ten monthly records up to March 2024 signals a dire warning in a year when human-caused climate change, exacerbated by the El Niño phenomenon, has intensified natural disasters, even as humanity has yet to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions significantly.
Over the past year, global temperatures have soared 1.58°C above pre-industrial levels, breaching the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C limit. However, Copernicus notes that this anomaly should be observed over « at least 20 years » to confirm that climate, not just annual weather, has reached this critical threshold.
« We are extraordinarily close to this limit, and we are already on borrowed time, » says Samantha Burgess, deputy head of the EU climate change service.
For over a year, ocean temperatures, crucial climate regulators covering 70% of Earth’s surface, have been hotter than any other time on record. March 2024 even set a new absolute record, with average ocean surface temperatures (excluding polar regions) hitting 21.07°C, as measured by Copernicus.
« This is incredibly unusual, » says Burgess. This warming threatens marine life, brings more moisture into the atmosphere — leading to more unstable weather conditions like strong winds and heavy rains — and diminishes the oceans’ capacity to absorb our greenhouse gas emissions, crucial carbon sinks that store 90% of the excess energy from human activities.
« The warmer the global atmosphere gets, the more frequent, severe, and intense extreme events will become, » the scientist warns, listing « heatwaves, droughts, floods, and wildfires » among the imminent threats.
Water shortages
Recent examples include severe water shortages affecting Vietnam, Catalonia, and Southern Africa, Malawi and Zambia. Furthermore, Zimbabwe faces a national disaster with 2.7 million people threatened by famine. Colombia has imposed water rationing, and water scarcity fears loom over Mexico.
Conversely, Russia, Brazil, and France have experienced notable flooding. The role of climate change in each event remains to be determined by scientific studies. Yet, it’s clear that global warming, by increasing evapotranspiration and potential air humidity, amplifies the intensity of certain precipitation events.
Since June, the global weather has been under the influence of the natural El Niño phenomenon, synonymous with higher temperatures. Expected to peak in December, its effects on continental temperatures are predicted to linger until May, according to the World Meteorological Organization, with a chance that its counterpart, La Niña, might emerge « later this year » following a neutral phase between April and June.
Will more records fall in the coming months? « If we continue to see so much heat at the ocean surface (…) it’s very likely, » Burgess cautions.
An extraordinary 2023
Do these records exceed predictions? Climatologists debate this after an extraordinary 2023, the hottest year ever measured. « We can explain this heat largely, but not entirely, » summarizes Burgess. « [The year] 2023 falls within the range of climate model forecasts, but at the very outer edge, » far from the average, she adds.
Greenhouse gas concentrations—carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, the three main human-made greenhouse gases—continued to rise in 2023, according to estimates from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released April 5. Carbon dioxide levels averaged 419.3 parts per million (ppm) for the year, up 2.8 ppm from 2022.
According to the Carbon Monitor project, however, global carbon dioxide emissions in 2023 increased by just 0.1% from 2022, reaching 35.8 gigatons. While these estimates suggest a plateau in human emissions, they still account for « 10% to 66.7% of the remaining carbon budget to limit warming to 1.5°C, » say scientists from the international initiative providing regularly updated, science-based estimates of daily carbon dioxide emissions.
