Make way for a new world record holder! According to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists, 2024 is now officially the Earth’s warmest year on record. The previous record holder (2023) only had it for one year.
Stats show Earth’s average land and ocean surface temperature in 2024 was 2.32°F above the 20th-century average — the highest global temperature among all years in NOAA’s 1850-2024 climate record. It turned out to only be a scant warmer (0.18°F) than 2023. But it still counts.
The 2024 upper ocean heat content, which is defined as the amount of heat stored in the upper 2,000 meters of the ocean, was also the highest on record. The statistic has been tracked globally since 1958. NOAA notes the five highest values have all occurred in the last five years. This provided extra fuel for tropical disturbances this past year, especially in the Atlantic basin. There were 18 named storms during the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, which classifies as above average. Among the 18 storms, 11 developed into hurricanes with five of those reaching major category strength. Conversely to hurricanes, multiple large wildfires were causing havoc in Southern California as of this posting.
In addition to NOAA, other leading scientific organizations concur with the findings, including NASA, the Copernicus Climate Change Service, and the UK Met Office.
Checking NOAA’s scorecard, the planet’s 10 warmest years since 1850 have all occurred in the past decade.
2024 Global Temperature Anomaly timeline | NOAA
To access more details from the 2024 global climate report from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, visit ncei.noaa.gov.
