2024 was the hottest year on record, NASA and NOAA confirm
LA TimesAmid a week of horrifying wildfires in Los Angeles, government agencies in the U.S. and around the world confirmed Friday that 2024 was the planet’s hottest year since recordkeeping began in 1880. But since warmer air holds more moisture, the higher temperatures “could have exacerbated some events this year.” Last year’s data also notes a step toward a major climate threshold. NOAA pegged 2024’s global average surface temperature at 1.46 degrees C above its preindustrial baseline, and NASA’s measurements put the increase at 1.47 degrees C. In 2023, NASA said the temperature was 1.36 degrees C higher than the baseline. Considering the margin of error in their measurements, “that puts the NOAA and NASA models comfortably within the possibility that the real number is 1.5 degrees,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization said the increase was 1.55 degrees C and the U.K. Met Office, the country’s weather service, measured an increase of 1.53 degrees C. Although 2024 probably marks the first calendar year in which the average temperature exceeded the 1.5-degree threshold, it doesn’t mean Earth has passed the crucial target set in the Paris Agreement, Vose said.