August puts 2024 on track to be the warmest year on record

September 6 () –

August 2024 was the warmest on record globally (with August 2023), with an average temperature of 16.82 degrees Celsius, 0.71 degrees above the average for that month in the period 1991-2020.

According to the new monthly newsletter of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), The global average temperature anomaly so far this year (January–August 2024) is 0.70 degrees Celsius above the 1991–2020 average, which is the highest on record for this period and 0.23 degrees Celsius warmer than the same period in 2023.

The mean anomaly for the remaining months of this year would have to drop by at least 0.30°C for 2024 to be no warmer than 2023. This has never happened in the entire data set, making it increasingly likely that 2024 will be the warmest year on record, according to Copernicus.

August 2024 was 1.51°C above pre-industrial levels and is the 13th month in a 14-month period in which global mean surface air temperature exceeded pre-industrial levels by 1.5°C. The global mean temperature for the past 12 months (September 2023 – August 2024) is the highest on record for any 12-month period, 0.76°C above the 1991–2020 average and 1.64°C above the 1850–1900 pre-industrial average. These values ​​are identical to those recorded in the two previous 12-month periods, ending in June and July 2024.

SECOND WARMEST AUGUST IN EUROPE

The average European land temperature in August 2024 was 1.57°C higher than the 1991–2020 August average, making the month the second warmest August on record in Europe after August 2022, which was 1.73 °C above average.

European temperatures were above average in southern and eastern Europe, but below average in northwestern parts of Ireland and the United Kingdom, Iceland, the west coast of Portugal and southern Norway.

Outside Europe, temperatures were above average in East Antarctica, Texas, Mexico, Canada, northeast Africa, Iran, China, Japan and Australia.

Temperatures were below average in far eastern Russia and Alaska, the eastern United States, parts of southern South America, Pakistan and the Sahel.

The mean sea surface temperature for August 2024 in the 60°S-60°N area was 20.91 °C, the second highest value on record for the month, and only 0.07 °C below August 2023.

The equatorial Pacific had below-average temperatures, indicating a developing La Niña, but surface temperatures across all oceans remained unusually high in many regions.

According to Samantha Burgess, Deputy Director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), “Over the last three months of 2024, the planet has experienced its hottest June and August, its hottest day on record and its hottest northern summer on record. This series of record temperatures increases the probability that 2024 will be the hottest year on record“The extreme temperature events we have witnessed this summer will only intensify, with more devastating consequences for people and the planet, unless we take urgent action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”