Last year, the main indicators of climate change reached unprecedented levels, with an increase of between 1.34 and 1.41 degrees Celsius in the global average temperature compared to the reference period (1850-1900). According to a report published by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), these signals are a consequence of human-induced climate change and will have irreversible effects for hundreds or even thousands of years.
The WMO report emphasizes that each additional fraction of a degree in the global average temperature increases the costs and risks for humanity. In 2024, the global average temperature exceeded pre-industrial levels by 1.55 °C, becoming the warmest year recorded in the last 175 years. This indicates that the internationally established limit of 1.5 °C has been surpassed, considered the maximum tolerable for global warming.
Furthermore, it is noted that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached unprecedented levels in the last 800,000 years. At the poles, very low levels of sea ice have been recorded in the Arctic and minimal ice extents in Antarctica in recent years, with unprecedented glacier mass loss in the period 2022-2024.
Sea level rise, which accounts for 90% of the energy captured by greenhouse gases, has accelerated, as has heat content in the oceans, which reached its highest point in 65 years of observational records in 2024. The last ten years have been the warmest recorded, and each of the last eight years has set a new heat record in the oceans.
This temperature record in 2024 is attributed to increased greenhouse gas emissions and the transition from the La Niña phenomenon to El Niño, although factors such as changes in the solar cycle may also have contributed, according to WMO scientists.
