Earth breaks yearly heat record and lurches past dangerous warming threshold [View all]

Earth recorded its hottest year ever in 2024, with such a big jump that the planet temporarily passed a major climate threshold, weather monitoring agencies announced Friday.

It’s the first time in recorded history that the planet was above a hoped-for limit to warming for an entire year, according to measurements from four of the six teams. Scientists say if Earth stays above the threshold long-term, it will mean increased deaths, destruction, species loss and sea level rise from the extreme weather that accompanies warming.

And that would come on top of a year of deadly climate catastrophes — 27 billion-dollar disasters in the U.S. alone in 2024 — and as 2025 begins with devastating wildfires in southern California.

Last year’s global average temperature easily passed 2023’s record heat and kept going. It surpassed the long-term warming limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit ) since the late 1800s that was called for by the 2015 Paris climate pact, according to the European Commission’s Copernicus Climate Service, the United Kingdom’s Meteorology Office, Japan’s weather agency and the private Berkeley Earth team.

https://apnews.com/article/climate-change-warming-hot-record-2024-disasters-12f899f071fcdbd051ad49a872611e92