2024 is another challenging year for businesses. Earth’s climateIt was marked by record temperatures, extreme weather events and urgent warnings from scientists about accelerating global warming.
one analyze The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), an EU agency that tracks global warming, said this year will be the hottest since instrumental records began more than a century ago, beating the climate record set last year.
2024 will also be the first calendar year global average temperature It is 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, exceeding the goals set by the Paris Agreement to limit the worst impacts of climate change. “One year above the threshold” does not mean Paris Agreement Samantha Burgess, deputy director of C3S, said in a recent report: Press release“But it does mean that ambitious climate action is more urgent than ever.”
The earth’s temperature rises by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius every month throughout the year
New year starts with record-breaking continuation A 13-month crazeended in July, naturally child Climate patterns recede. This period includes Unusually warm summer This broke all-time heat records in U.S. history, with cities on the East and West Coast experiencing their hottest temperatures in seven decades.
This year’s Atlantic hurricane season officially ended on November 30 with above-average activity for 18 named storms, including record-breaking Hurricane Helene, which hit Florida’s Big Bend region for the first time since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The worst in the continental United States, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
“Influential and deadly 2024 hurricane season Matthew Rosencrans, chief hurricane forecaster at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center, said in a recent report: statement.
Meanwhile, an unusually high number of lightning-sparked fires in western Canada, with particularly devastating fires in the tourist town of Jasper, has led to the country’s second-worst wildfire season after last year’s devastating wildfires.
“We have fires that started in 2022 and 2023 that are still burning on October 1, 2024, and will still be burning in 2025,” said Lori Daniels, a wildfire expert and forest ecologist at the University of British Columbia. cbc news.
Severe drought reduces Amazon river flows to record lows
The Amazon’s worst-ever drought started last year and continues into this year, causing major rivers to reduced to very low levelsthe stranded community is only accessible by boat and results in disease surge Because the children drank dirty water.
Drought and illegal clearing of the Amazon rainforest for agriculture have been linked to catastrophic wildfire seasons in South America, particularly in the Pantanal and in countries such as Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru and Argentina. In Brazil, for example, the worst fires in seven decades have recently scorched an area the size of Italy and much larger than last year.
“Forests were once able to withstand these fires,” Rachel Biederman, who leads the work in South America for the U.S. nonprofit Conservation International, said in a report. statement.
“Now, because of climate change, because the forests continue to degrade, and because this is the second year of drought in a row, the forests are getting so dry that they’re on fire like they used to be.”
Warming Arctic tundra now releases more carbon than it absorbs
NOAA scientists are closely monitoring arctic climate change The tundra region has the second-highest annual surface temperature since 1900. . but one New NOAA Arctic Report Card pointed out that the area has now become greenhouse gases Emissions increase as they thaw and release carbon and methane into the air, a change that is also influenced by increased wildfire activity. In September, sea ice extent was the sixth-lowest in the 45-year satellite record.
“Scientists predict this is yet another sign of the consequences of insufficient reductions in fossil fuel pollution,” Rick Spinrad, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), said in a report. Press release.
“Every year brings something new to the Arctic Ocean,” Walter Meyer, senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado, added in a separate report. statement. “This summer, we’re seeing stubborn pack ice persist throughout the summer melt season in the open waters around the Hudson Bay, the Arctic, and around the Bering Strait. While this isn’t a new historic low, it’s sea ice lowest This is yet another example of environmental change in the Arctic.
These events pushed humanity into a Critical and unpredictable stage impacts of the climate crisis, but some aspects of global warming, such as intense heat waves and loss of sea ice, can still be reversed through aggressive action to reduce emissions to keep temperatures below 3 degrees Fahrenheit, scientists say.
“There’s still time to do this,” said Michael Mann, a climatologist and author of the book.our vulnerable moments“About the past and future of Earth’s climate, podcast last year. “The barriers are not physical. They are not technical – they are entirely political at this point.”
Some of these challenges came into focus at the United Nations climate summit in Azerbaijan late last month, where about two dozen industrialized countries agreed to contribute $300 billion annually by 2035, aiming to help developing countries build infrastructure to transition away from fossil fuels. Fuel dependence Fuels prepared to combat climate change – met strong criticism He called it “chaos, mismanagement” and “nothing more than an optical illusion.”
The agreement sets the stage for next year’s climate summit, to be held in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest, where countries will come together to plan climate action for the next decade.