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Today, six climate agencies from around the world confirmed what we knew was coming: Earth once again experienced its hottest year on record.
But whether it will exceed 1.5 C above the pre-industrial average depends on which climate agency you look at.
According to the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, 2024 was the warmest year on record since 1850, with temperatures 1.6C above the pre-industrial average (1850-1900). It beat 2023 as the warmest year on record, which was 1.48 C warmer than the pre-industrial average.
However, according to NASA, 2024 was 1.47 C warmer than the pre-industrial average, moving closer to 1.5 C.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found that it was 1.46 C warmer.
Berkeley Earth, a non-profit climate analysis organization, also found that 2024 was 1.62 C warmer than the pre-industrial average.
The numbers vary between agencies because of how climate agencies collect historical data.
However, the World Meteorological Organization looked at all these analyses, plus those from the UK Met Office and the Japan Meteorological Agency, and found that we are “likely” to have exceeded 1.5C of warming in 2024.
But what they do agree on is that the last 10 years have been the warmest on record.
While this may be the first calendar year to exceed the 1.5 C threshold set in The Paris Agreementit does not mean that we broke that agreement. That threshold – a pledge by 195 countries to keep global warming below 1.5C above the pre-industrial average – refers to many years in which the Earth’s temperature is consistently above that, not just one or two.
And it also doesn’t mean there’s no hope of keeping warming from exceeding that goal. As climatologists often say, “every fraction of a degree counts.”
This is not the first 12-month period of warming above that threshold. From mid-2023 to mid-2024, the planet was 1.5 C warmer. It’s just that it didn’t happen in one calendar year.
Does 1.5 really matter?
While there may be some disagreement about the exact degree of warming – only hundredths of a degree – the message is the same: Earth is getting warmer.
“What we can say, I think, is that it’s likely that it broke the 1.5 barrier in 2024,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. “However, the impacts that we see, if they’re 1.48 or 1.52 or 1.6, you know, they’re pretty much the same.”
“We’re seeing that increased precipitation intensity, we’re seeing increased heat waves, we’re seeing sea level rise. All of those things don’t really depend on the minor details of the last decimal point,” Schmidt said.
According to the World Weather Attribution (WWA), climate-related disasters contributed to the deaths of at least 3,700 people and the displacement of millions in 26 weather events they studied in 2024.
In its December report, WWA noted that, “This is only a small fraction of the 219 events that met our triggering criteria, used to identify the most impactful weather events. This is likely the total number of people killed by climate-enhanced extreme weather events the change this year is in the tens or hundreds of thousands.”
When will we know that we have crossed the threshold of the Paris Agreement?
While 2024 began with high temperatures, fueled by El Niño — a natural, cyclical warming in the Pacific Ocean region that, along with the atmosphere, can cause global temperatures to rise — that is not the case for 2025.
“This year, 2025, we’re starting off with kind of a mild landing year, a little bit cold,” Schmidt said. “So that’s going to be the contrast between 2025 and 2024: we’re starting at a cooler level. So we expect 2025 to be cooler than 2024, but maybe not by much.”
Instead of El Niño, we start with a La Niña warning, which can lead to slightly lower global temperatures.
Even if 2025 brings a cooler year, the trend is for the Earth’s temperature to keep increasing.
Unprecedented wildfires in Los Angeles County are being fueled by unusually dry weather and hurricane-force winds, and experts warn the problem is not unique to California.
But it is difficult to know when we will cross the threshold of 1.5 C of the Paris Agreement.
“The general interpretation, including the most recent (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report, is that the pre-industrial period means 1850 to 1900, and passing the target means that the 20-year average has exceeded 1.5 degrees,” said Zeke Hausfather, scientific scientist at Berkeley Earth.
“The problem with that definition, of course, is that we won’t really know when we’re past 1.5 degrees until 10 years after we’ve passed 1.5 degrees, which is not a very useful definition,” he said.
But Hausfather noted that there are climate scientists who are trying to figure out a better way to bring it about sooner.
Still, he said, “We’re probably going to go firmly past 1.5 degrees in the next five to 10 years.”
And while it may be tiring to hear that it’s another year for the record books no matter where it’s at, Schmidt said there’s a reason why.
“It’s the same story every year or so, because the long-term trends are driven by our fossil fuel emissions, and they haven’t stopped,” he said. “Until they stop, we’re going to keep having the same conversation. So, do I sound like a broken record? Yes, I do, because we keep breaking records.”
As for Hausfather, he too is worried about the steady rise in temperature.
“The climate is an angry beast,” he said. “We should stop poking him with clubs.”
