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Global Warming

  • Writer: Agota Szedlak
    Agota Szedlak
  • 19 hours ago
  • 2 min read

The WMO has confirmed that following 2023 (1.45 °C), the year 2024 is now the hottest year on record, with an average temperature increase of 1.55 °C compared to pre-industrial levels.The past decade, from 2015 to 2024, includes the ten hottest years on record. All of the past ten years were among the top ten in this extraordinary series of record-breaking temperatures.


Source: WMO
Source: WMO

"Climate history is unfolding before our eyes. We haven't just had one or two record-breaking years — we've had an entire decade of them. This has been accompanied by destructive and extreme weather, rising sea levels, and melting ice — all driven by record levels of greenhouse gases caused by human activity."


According to the WMO’s consolidated analysis of six datasets for the year 2024, the global average surface temperature exceeded the 1850–1900 average by 1.55 °C. This means we have truly just experienced the first calendar year in which the global average temperature was more than 1.5 °C above the 1850–1900 baseline.


Source: WMO
Source: WMO

“Whether the warming is just below or above 1.5 °C, every further increase in global temperature intensifies the impacts on our lives, our economies, and our planet.”


Ocean warming in 2024 played a key role in reaching record levels. According to a study led by Professor Lijing Cheng of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the ocean is now the warmest it has ever been observed by humans — not only at the surface, but down to 2,000 meters deep.


Roughly 90% of the excess heat from global warming is stored in the ocean, making ocean heat content a critical indicator of climate change. Based on data from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, the increase in heat content in the upper 2,000 meters of the global ocean between 2023 and 2024 was about 16 zettajoules (10²¹ joules) — roughly 140 times the total global electricity generation in 2023.


Source: WMO
Source: WMO

The hotter it gets, the more air conditioning systems are installed, and the more cooling is needed — which, in turn, contributes to heating the atmosphere. Global warming continues!


Based on the diagrams above, continuous temperature increases are expected in the coming years. The greater the demand for cooling, and the more frequently and intensively cooling systems operate, the more essential efficient heat storage becomes.

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