2024 Was The Hottest Year In Recorded History, Unleashing “Misery For Millions Of People”

Update 10/01/2025: Further information has been added to this story following the publication of additional climate reports from NASA, NOAA, the UK Met Office, and the World Meteorological Organization.

It’s official: 2024 was the hottest on record, signaling a dramatic shift that is already inflicting misery on “millions of people.”

For the first time, the global average temperature surpassed 1.5°C (2.7°F) above pre-industrial levels. This threshold is particularly significant because it breaches the crucial limits set by the Paris Agreement, which aims to keep global temperatures “well below 2°C [3.6°F] above pre-industrial levels, with efforts to limit it to 1.5°C [2.7°F].” Now, it seems we’ve surpassed that target.

“Individual years pushing past the 1.5 degree limit do not mean the long-term goal is shot. It means we need to fight even harder to get on track. Blazing temperatures in 2024 require trail-blazing climate action in 2025,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement.

These are the chief findings of a new report by the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), released today alongside the 2024 reports from several other climate monitoring groups NASA, NOAA, the UK Met Office, and the World Meteorological Organization.

As per C3S, the global average temperature in 2024 was 15.1°C (59.18°F), equivalent to 1.6°C (2.88°F) above pre-industrial levels. The organization added that human-driven climate change is the chief cause of the rise in temperature, although other factors – namely the El Niño Southern Oscillation climate cycle – had some influence.

“All of the internationally produced global temperature datasets show that 2024 was the hottest year since records began in 1850. Humanity is in charge of its own destiny but how we respond to the climate challenge should be based on evidence. The future is in our hands – swift and decisive action can still alter the trajectory of our future climate,” Carlo Buontempo, Director of C3S, said in a statement.

Per NOAA, the contiguous US saw an average annual temperature of 13°C (55.5°F), which is 1.9°C (3.5°F) above the 20th-century average, making it the country’s warmest year on record. At least 17 states – including Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, and Texas, among others – also recorded their warmest year on record.

A range of climate records were broken last year:

• The annual average sea surface temperature in 2024 hit a record high of 20.87°C (69.56°F), surpassing the 1991–2020 average by 0.51°C (0.92°F).
• The total amount of water vapor in the atmosphere hit a record high, approximately 5 percent above the 1991–2020 average.
• Every year from 2015 to 2024 ranks among the 10 warmest years ever recorded.
• 2024 was the warmest year for all of Earth’s continents, except Antarctica and Australasia.
• On 22 July 2024, a new record was set for the highest daily global average temperature, reaching 17.16°C (62.88°F).
• On July 10, 2024, the extent of “strong” to “extreme” heat stress across the globe hit a new record, impacting around 44 percent of the planet, which is 5 percent more than the typical annual peak.
• Atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide and methane hit new annual records, reaching 422 parts per million (ppm) and 1,897 parts per billion (ppb), respectively. Carbon dioxide levels increased by 2.9 ppm compared to 2023, while methane concentrations rose by 3 ppb.

Keep in mind, as you digest these statistics, that behind every number is a real human impact.

“Each year in the last decade is one of the ten warmest on record. We are now teetering on the edge of passing the 1.5°C level defined in the Paris Agreement and the average of the last two years is already above this level. These high global temperatures, coupled with record global atmospheric water vapour levels in 2024, meant unprecedented heatwaves and heavy rainfall events, causing misery for millions of people,” explained Samantha Burgess, Strategic Lead for Climate for the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.

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