According to Copernicus, the EU’s climate monitoring program, global average temperatures from June 2023 to May 2024 were 1.63 degrees above the 1850–1900 “pre-industrial” baseline.
Short-term annual breaches are not the same as persistently above-average global warming relative to pre-industrial levels, which is what global climate negotiations want to prevent.
However, it serves as a reminder of how temperatures rise in tandem with carbon emissions caused by human activity and the significance of continuous attempts to lower them.
“That we have reached this 12-month streak is shocking but not surprising,” director Carlo Buontempo said.
The current run of record-breaking months will eventually come to an end, but for now, there is little indication that the general signature of climate change will change.”
The results coincide with a warning from the World Meteorological Organization that at least one of the next five years will see warming of more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The World Meteorological Organization predicts that average global surface temperatures between 2024 and 2028 are expected to be between 1.1 and 1.9 degrees warmer than the average from 1850 to 1900, now that greenhouse gas emissions have returned to pre-COVID levels.
