Heat waves and extreme temperatures have hit Europe since early June of this year.
As a matter of course, Copernicus Climate Change Service declared the 2024 summer as the Earth’s hottest summer on record.
This summer also breaks the European record, with 1.54 degrees Celsius above the 1991-2020 average. Most European countries witnessed record temperatures, with Austria going through the hottest summer ever, while Spain and Finland had their warmest August, and Switzerland the second warmest.
Southern and eastern parts of Europe were especially affected by the continuous temperature rise the most.
In 2024, the global average temperature surpassed the 1991-2020 average by 0.7 °C, the highest on record so far.
Therefore, Copernicus expects 2024 to be the warmest year on record worldwide. At first, scientists were not sure if 2024 would break the record of 2023 in terms of hotness; however, since the 2024 summer scores 0.03 Celsius degrees warmer than the 2023 summer with a 16.8 °C average, it is likely that 2024 will become the hottest year very soon.
August marked the 13th in a 14-month period in which the global average temperature exceeded 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
“In order for 2024 not to become the warmest on record, we need to see very significant landscape cooling for the remaining few months, which doesn't look likely at this stage,” Copernicus Director Carlo Buontempo stated.
Moreover, the future does not seem bright in terms of temperature and global warming as Copernicus deputy director Samantha Burgess states "Temperature-related extreme events witnessed this summer will only become more intense". Similarly, as Stefan Rahmstorf, a climate scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research remarks, “What those sober numbers indicate is how the climate crisis is tightening its grip on us.”
While Copernicus’s data dates back to 1940, the scientists cross-checked with other data to verify that the 2024 summer was the hottest since the 1850 pre-industrial period.
Importantly, these numbers are not really about records but have increasingly significant effects on people, often causing damage or loss. For instance, in South Sudan recently flood affected more than 700,000 people, in addition to giving rise to water-borne infections like cholera and hepatitis E, and vector-borne diseases like malaria as record levels of water have been reached in Lake Victoria. Likewise, two people died from heatstroke in Cyprus, followed by Cyprus issuing its first red alert as temperatures soared and reached 45 °C, 10 C above average. At least 5 tourists in Greece lost their lives due to heatwaves that led Acropolist to be shut down to tourists. In the meantime, Türkiye battled several wildfires. Athletes in the Paris 2024 Olympics, too, struggled as temperatures reached as high as 36 degrees Celcius and with 70% humidity. Athletes were warned beforehand that the Paris Olympics may be the hottest in history, with a risk of some competitors fainting or even dying. Friederike Otto, a climate scientist from Imperial College London notes simply: “Climate change crashed the Olympics. The world watched athletes swelter in 35°C heat. If the atmosphere wasn’t overloaded with emissions from burning fossil fuel, Paris would have been about 3°C cooler and much safer for sport.” Furthermore, a study by the World Weather Attribution concluded that the excessive temperatures at the Paris Olympics would be “virtually impossible” if there was no human-induced climate change, supporting Otto’s point.
The unusually high temperatures we are experiencing are a result of a consistent long-term warming pattern driven by human activities, particularly the emission of greenhouse gases, according to NASA.
While it is evident that human activities remain the most significant cause of global warming and temperature rise, El Niño also contributed to the excessive temperatures in 2023 and 2024.
Observed between June 2023 and May 2024, El Niño is a natural climate pattern characterized by natural warming of the sea surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific, which is believed to boost temperatures even more.
Now that it has ended, scientists from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology anticipate that the Pacific will enter La Niña, the reverse of El Niño, thus natural cooling of the sea surface temperatures in the central Pacific, in the coming months. However, as Buontempo says, La Niña is unlikely to cool the temperatures down to keep 2024 from outranking 2023, Earth’s warmest year on record.
Burgess highlights the necessity of taking urgent action in order to cut down greenhouse gas emissions to avoid more devastating consequences, urging authorities and individuals to take action. Since addressing the issue via data is the first step of the solution, the report of Copernicus matters although solid action plans and implementations of renewable energy and sustainable, eco-friendly lifestyle have to be initiated especially by authorities as soon as possible, considering the current outlook is not very promising.