This article documents events, research findings, scientific and technological advances, and human actions to measure, predict, mitigate, and adapt to the effects of global warming and climate change—during the year 2024.
Summaries
19 March: "The climate crisis is the defining challenge that humanity faces and is closely intertwined with the inequality crisis, as witnessed by growing food insecurity and population displacement, and biodiversity loss." —Prof. Celeste Saulo, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization, in State of the Climate 2023. WMO-No. 1347, p. iii. October: "For the first time in human history, the hydrological cycle is out of balance, undermining an equitable and sustainable future for all." 12 November: At the COP29 conference, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres described 2024 as a "master class in climate destruction. 7 April 2025: a study published in npj Climate and Atmospheric Science found that the climate extremes of 2023–2024 were exceptional even compared to recent warming trends, with record-breaking global surface air and sea surface temperatures. The research attributes these extremes to a combination of a positive decadal trend in Earth's Energy Imbalance, three consecutive years of La Niña, and a rapid transition to El Niño, resulting in over 75% more heating between 2022 and 2023 than during similar past events. The authors warn that if the current trend in Earth's energy accumulation continues, natural climate fluctuations like ENSO will increasingly produce amplified, record-breaking impacts in the future.
Measurements and statistics
5 February: a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences proposed adding a "Category 6" to the Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale to adequately convey storms' risk to the public, the researchers noting a number of storms have already achieved that intensity. 5 February: a study published in Nature Climate Change, based on 300 years of ocean mixed-layer temperature records preserved in sclerosponge skeletons, concluded that modern global warming began in the 1860s (over 80 years earlier than indicated by sea surface temperature records) and was already 1.7°C above pre-industrial levels by 2020—a figure 0.5°C higher than IPCC estimates.
February (reported): a Copernicus Climate Change Service analysis indicated that from February 2023 through January 2024, the running average global average air temperature exceeded 1.5°C for the first time. This single-year breach does not violate the 1.5°C long-term average agreed on in the 2015 Paris Agreement. 13 February: a study published in Current Issues in Tourism concluded that U.S. average ski seasons (incl. snowmaking) decreased from 1960–1979 to 2000–2019 by between 5.5 and 7.1 days per season, with direct economic losses estimated at $252 million annually. 18 March (reported): the University of Maine's Climate Reanalyzer analyzed NOAA data and concluded that the average global ocean surface temperature reached a record daily high in mid-March 2023, and remained at unprecedented high levels every day since. 21 March: a study published in Communications Earth & Environment concluded that higher temperatures increase inflation persistently over twelve months in both higher- and lower-income countries, with inflation pressures largest at low latitudes and having strong seasonality at high latitudes. 8 May (reported): Ember reported that for the first time, renewable energy generated a 30% of global electricity in 2023. 28 May: a study published by Climate Central, the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre and World Weather Attribution concluded that over the preceding twelve months, human-caused climate change caused a worldwide average of 26 additional days of extreme heat. 11 June: a study published in Earth System Science Data estimated that total annual anthropogenic nitrous oxide () emissions increased 40% from 1980 to 2020, exceeding projected levels under all scenarios in the CMIP6 model.
1 July (reported): Hurricane Beryl, the earliest Category 5 storm on record in the Atlantic, (Beryl had increased to Category 5.) broke records for rapid intensification (65 mph in 24 hours), overall strength, and location for June. (when Beryl was still Category 4) 9 July (reported): for the first time, in each month in a 12-month period (through June 2024), Earth's average temperature exceeded 1.5°C above the pre-industrial baseline. (Copernicus graphic) 21 July: the highest daily global average temperature is recorded at , surpassing the previous record of on 6 July 2023. 28 August: a study published in the journal Nature concluded that the June–September 2023 Canadian wildfires caused carbon emissions that exceeded annual fossil fuel emissions of all nations except India, China and the US. 20 November: a study published in Environmental Research: Climate, applied to 2024 Atlantic hurricanes to date, estimated that climate change's increase of water temperatures intensified peak wind speeds in all eleven such hurricanes by , including Helene () and Milton ().● ● Explained in 30 November: a report from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Stepping back from the precipice: Transforming land management to stay within planetary boundaries, estimated an annual land degradation rate of , in addition to previous accumulated land degradation of . July 2025: the International Renewable Energy Agency's Renewable Power Generation Costs 2024 said that on a levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) basis, 91% of new renewable utility-scale capacity delivered power at a lower cost than the cheapest new fossil fuel-based alternative. New onshore wind projects had an LCOE of $0.034/kWh, solar photovoltaic $0.043/kWh, and hydropower $0.057/kWh. 16 October 2025: the World Meteorological Organization's Greenhouse Gas Bulletin reported that from 2023 to 2024, atmospheric carbon dioxide increased by 3.5 ppm, constituting the largest single-year increase since measurements began in 1957.
Natural events and phenomena January: a study published in Annual Review of Marine Science reported that sea level rise's (SLR's) elevation of coastal water tables and shifting of their salinity landward—whose damage is "largely concealed and imperceptible"—makes potentially 1,546 coastal communities vulnerable to impacts decades before SLR-induced surface inundation. 12 February: a study published by the nonprofit First Street Foundation reported that improvements in air quality brought about by environmental regulation are being partially reversed by a "climate penalty" caused by climate change, especially with increases in PM2.5 particulates caused by increased wildfires. 28 February: a study published in Weather and Climate Dynamics statistically linked recent Arctic ice loss with warmer and drier weather in Europe, enabling "an enhanced predictability of European summer weather at least a winter in advance". 25 March: a study published in Oecologia concluded that global warming, and increased intensity and frequency of precipitation and wildfires, have reduced pollen diversity, negatively affecting pollen richness in the Great Basin and Sierra Nevada. 26 March: a study published in Nature concluded that under some circumstances, change in albedo (Earth's surface's reflection of sunlight back into space) resulting from planting more trees can cause a significant "albedo offset" that reduces the benefits of the trees' removal of carbon from the atmosphere. 27 March: a study published in Nature concluded that accelerated melting of ice in Greenland and Antarctica has decreased Earth's rotational velocity, affecting Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) adjustments and causing problems for computer networks that rely on UTC.
8 April: recognizing that climate warming causes many meteorites to be lost from the surface by melting into the Antarctic ice sheet, a study in Nature Climate Change concluded that about 5,000 meteorites become inaccessible each year. About 24% are projected to be lost by 2050, potentially rising to ~76% by 2100 under a high-emissions scenario. (Over 60% of meteorite finds on Earth originate from Antarctica.) 11 April: a study published in Science noted that the effect of soil inorganic carbon (SIC) on future atmospheric carbon concentrations has been inadequately studied, and projected that soil acidification associated with nitrogen additions to terrestrial ecosystems will cause release into the atmosphere up to 23 billion tonnes of carbon over the next 30 years. 11 May (reported): Venezuela became the first country in modern times to lose all of its glaciers, with the Humboldt Glacier having shrunk to the point that climate scientists reclassified it as an ice field. 20 May: a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences concluded that rushing of seawater beneath grounded ice over considerable distances makes Thwaites Glacier, Antarctica, more vulnerable to melting than previously anticipated, which in turn increases projections of ice mass loss. 6 June: a study published in Geophysical Research Letters concluded that, from 1980 through 2022, internal climate variability has enhanced Arctic warming but suppressed global warming, specifically involving warming in the Barents Sea and Kara Sea but cooling in the tropical Eastern Pacific Ocean and Southern Ocean.
13 June: the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration published a notice that El Niño conditions had given way to ENSO-neutral conditions in the preceding month, Use the archive link, as NOAA continually updates the direct link. ending a year-long period during which ocean and air temperatures reached into record-setting territory. 24 June: a study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution reported that the frequency of extreme wildfires increased by a factor of 2.2 from 2003 to 2023, with the most recent 7 years including the 6 most extreme. 15 July: noting that global warming-induced melting of glaciers and polar ice sheets has moved mass from polar regions toward the equator to significantly change Earth's shape and increase the length of days (LOD), a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences concluded that mass variations at the Earth's surface lengthened days between 0.3–1.0ms/year in the 20th century, and accelerated to about 1.33ms/year in the 21st century. Under a high emissions scenario, LOD could increase to 2.62±0.79ms/year by 2100. LOD variations make precise timekeeping and space navigation more difficult. 15 July: a study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution proposed deoxygenation of freshwater and marine ecosystems as a tenth planetary boundary (with related tipping point). 25 July: from measurements of and methane emissions from exposed sediments of Great Salt Lake, a study published in One Earth concluded that such emissions are high enough that they should be accounted for in regional carbon budgets, and warrant efforts to halt and reverse the loss of saline lakes around the world. 9 December: a report from the UNCCD concluded that more than three-quarters of the Earth's land "has become permanently dryer in recent decades", that "drier climates now affecting vast regions across the globe will not return to how they were", and that a quarter of the global population lives in expanding drylands. December (reported): NOAA's 2024 Arctic Report Card stated that the Arctic tundra region had shifted from being a sink to being a source. The region continued to be a methane source. 5 December: a study published in Science attributed 2023's unexpectedly large rise in global average temperature to a "record low planetary albedo" resulting from a continuation of a multi-year trend of diminishing low cloud cover in the northern mid-latitudes and tropics.