January 2024 was the world's warmest on record
January 2024 was the hottest January ever recorded, with global temperatures reaching 1.66°C above pre-industrial levels, a monitoring agency said on Thursday. January 2024 also marked the eighth straight month of record-high temperatures, according to a report by European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service To be sure, 2023 was the hottest year on record, and experts are already predicting 2024 will beat 2023's extremely high temperatures.
Why does this story matter?
In 2015, global leaders signed the Paris Climate Accord, pledging to limit the global temperature rise below 2°C this century. While temperatures have surpassed 1.5°C in a year, the target remains unbroken. However, experts have warned that with a meteoric rise in greenhouse emissions, the threshold could be crossed soon. In the aforementioned report, experts have said that "rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions" are the only way to the check rise of global temperatures.
Regional impacts and unprecedented temperatures
In its report, the agency pointed out that temperatures in southern Europe, eastern Canada, northwestern Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia were much higher than the average of the past 30 years. Spain experienced its warmest January since 1961, with an average temperature of 8.4°C. On the other hand, Europe grappled with severe cold and snowstorms, resulting in transportation disruptions and school closures in Scandinavia, while Western Europe faced flooding due to strong winds and heavy rain.
Read the report here
El Niño and rising sea surface temperatures
This January 2024 record surpasses the previous milestone set in January 2020, continuing a trend of rising temperatures attributed to both human-induced climate change and natural weather patterns like El Niño. It is expected that El Niño will potentially lead to a rise in temperature in 2024 as well. Notably, El Niño's weakening in the equatorial Pacific hasn't curbed unusually high marine air temperatures. January saw a peak in global sea surface temperatures, with daily temperatures rising even in February.
