Earth is likely to have its hottest year on record – again

NASA’s top climate scientist says the planet is being tested and ‘we have not yet passed that test’

Julia Musto
Tuesday 22 October 2024 22:13 BST
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Temps in SF reach mid-90s, hottest in years

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This year is likely to be Earth’s hottest on record once again, according to NASA’s chief climate scientist.

Dr. Gavin Schmidt, the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, wrote on social media Tuesday that new data from September had made it “almost certain to be a new annual surface temperature record.”

This year, the Earth is expected to see temperatures that are more than 2.1 degrees above the average - which is where it sat in 2023 when it set the record.

In August, the European Copernicus Climate Service also projected that this year would be the hottest on record.

“The long-term trends are entirely due to our impact on climate and we aren’t really slowing down as a globe, though we’re slowing down in various places. But, globally, we’re not slowing down and so that is going to continue to push us higher,” Schmidt told The Independent on Tuesday.

Khaled Abdel Rahman, 74, takes a photo during a hot day at a public beach near the entrance of the Egypt’s Suez Cana last month. September broke a 15-month streak of new records. Despite the streak ending, experts still expect 2024 to be the hottest year on record
Khaled Abdel Rahman, 74, takes a photo during a hot day at a public beach near the entrance of the Egypt’s Suez Cana last month. September broke a 15-month streak of new records. Despite the streak ending, experts still expect 2024 to be the hottest year on record (REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany)

Schmidt’s findings comes as his agency announced that last month was the second-warmest September on record: the first non-record breaking month in over a year. The news ended an unprecedented 15-month streak of consecutive new records.

These projections come as scientists expect a weak La Niña climate pattern to develop later in the year, bringing colder weather to the northern US and wetter weather in the South. The year started with its warmer phase, El Niño. Although that ended in May, global temperatures have remained high and the US has felt some major heat through October.

With the (belated) September data now in, the updated prediction is that 2024 is almost certain to be a new annual surface temperature record, and possibly by more than 0.1ºC. 50% change of exceeding 1.5ºC above the late 19th C.

[image or embed]

— Gavin Schmidt (@climateofgavin.bsky.social) October 22, 2024 at 10:22 AM

However, the next few months are projected to be pretty neutral, and NASA isn’t anticipating something that could suddenly cool the climate.

Schmidt explained climatologists generally expect El Niño events to nudge the planet into “warmer territories.”

“And so, this year, we started off with an El Niño and so we predicted at the end of last year that 2024 would [have a] 50 percent chance that it would be the warmest year. Now, it’s actually been warmer than we predicted,” he said. “So, there may well be something else going on.”

While multiple factors contribute to rising temperatures – the sun recently reached the solar maximum period of its cycle, leading to increased activity -- the reason for last year’s record warmth is still unexplained.

A NASA chart shows the global temperature in September from 1880 to 2024. September was the second-hottest on record.
A NASA chart shows the global temperature in September from 1880 to 2024. September was the second-hottest on record. (NASA Climate)

“And so, the same unexplained thing that nudged 2023 warmer is likely also nudging 2024 warmer. But, we did expect it to be the warmest year on record right at the beginning,” Schmidt said. Next year won’t start with an El Niño event and there might be relief from these kinds of headlines.

The main culprit remains the incessant emissions of greenhouse gases by the fossil fuel industry. The answer to slow warming is to reduce those emissions.

“We’re being tested. The planet is testing us to see if we can explain things that we didn’t anticipate,” said Schmidt. “And, we have not yet passed that test.”

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