NOAA and NASA said Friday that 2024 was the hottest year in recorded history, adding consensus to an earlier announcement by European scientists.
Global temperatures for the year averaged about 1.46 degrees Celsius, or 2.6 degrees Fahrenheit, above the planet’s preindustrial levels, NOAA’s analysis found. NASA reported similar findings at 1.47 C. That’s 0.18 C higher than global average temperatures in 2023, the previous record-holder.
“This is not really new news at this stage — it’s more of a confirmation of what we all suspected was going to happen,” said Russ Vose, chief of the Monitoring and Assessment Branch at NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information.
The climate research nonprofit Berkeley Earth also released its annual temperature summary Friday, concluding that global temperatures last year averaged 1.62 C above preindustrial levels. By these calculations, 2024 was the first calendar year to rise above a landmark 1.5 C threshold.
