The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track planetary extreme, or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or Main Topic: Biden Spells Out Climate Goals That Will Be Ignored by Trump temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials).😉
Main Topic: Looking Back at a Very Hot and Horrid 2024
Dear Diary. It is the end of the year so we as usual we are starting to see annual summaries. The year 2024 will be pegged as the warmest in human history with awful weather consequences. Politically, democracy failed the United States, so Trump was reelected. I cringe when I think what he will do to our environment the next four years.
Just how bad was 2024 as far as our climate goes? Here is the first of many summaries that I will present over the course of the next month:
Climate change is the worst. Here’s just how bad it got this year.
12/27/2024
The big news in Earth science this year was all about climate change, with extreme weather, flooding and drought attributed to warming. Scientists also warned about much worse to come if we don’t rein in carbon emissions.
The aftermath of floods in Spain that left over 200 people dead. (Image credit: Pablo Blazquez Dominguez / Stringer via Getty Images)
The most important Earth news in 2024 was undoubtedly the most depressing: Climate change wreaked havoc around the globe, indirectly causing flooding, drought, wildfires and other extreme weather events.
This year is on track to become the warmest year since records began and the first year that global temperatures have been 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels.
In May, levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere — as measured from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Mauna Loa Observatory — reached a record high of 426.90 parts per million. “Not only is CO2 now at the highest level in millions of years, it is also rising faster than ever,” Ralph Keeling, director of the Scripps CO2 Program, said in a statement at the time. Global carbon emissions from fossil fuels also reached a new record high.
Copernicus graph showing warming above preindustrial levels since 1940. (Image credit: Copernicus Climate Change Service /ECMWF.)
All that warming has had disastrous impacts on weather around the globe. The year started with one of the strongest El Niño events on record. That led to a devastating hurricane season that culminated in the deadliest storm to hit the continental U.S. in decades. El Niño also fueled a severe drought in the Amazon. This prolonged drought made the rainforest “more flammable” — an impact that led to the worst wildfire season in nearly 20 years.
Gif showing the water levels in the Solimões River near Tabatinga, Brazil, in 2021 and 2024. Water levels fell to record-low levels in October 2024. (Image credit: NASA Earth Observatory)
And in Spain, torrential rain led to flash floods that killed over 200 people. Scientists also linked this dramatic weather event to climate change.
Climate change devastation edging closer
But some of the scariest news about the planet isn’t what happened this year but rather what could occur if we don’t stop spewing carbon into the atmosphere. A study published in June suggested ecological tipping points — such as the collapse of the Greenland Ice Sheet and the transformation of the Amazon rainforest into savanna — could be reached in just 15 years if climate change isn’t controlled.
In October, scientists penned an open letter warning about the risk posed by the collapse of a key Atlantic current. In it, researchers urged policymakers to address the threat posed by the weakening Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) — a giant ocean conveyor belt that transports heat to the Northern Hemisphere, and the breakdown of which could cause temperatures across Europe to plummet.
We’ve also been warned that we’re facing a global water crisis due in part to climate change and chronic mismanagement of resources. “For the first time in human history, we are pushing the global water cycle out of balance,” Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and co-chair of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water, which produced the report, said in a statement. “Precipitation, the source of all freshwater, can no longer be relied upon due to human caused climate and land use change, undermining the basis for human wellbeing and the global economy.”
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Still, it’s not too late to avert some of the worst of these futures. Michael Mann, presidential distinguished professor and director of the Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media at the University of Pennsylvania, believes it’s not too late to stop the worst effects of climate change. “We [climate scientists] have, in some ways, failed to communicate that we can still avert catastrophic climate change,” he wrote for Live Science in November.
“We actually decide how bad the climate crisis will get. There is still time to preserve our ‘fragile moment,’ but the window of opportunity is narrowing. There is urgency in reducing carbon emissions. But there is also still agency on our part in acting.”
Editor
Hannah Osborne is the planet Earth and animals editor at Live Science. Prior to Live Science, she worked for several years at Newsweek as the science editor. Before this she was science editor at International Business Times U.K. Hannah holds a master’s in journalism from Goldsmith’s, University of London.
More:
Here are more “ETs” recorded from around the planet the last couple of days, their consequences, and some extreme temperature outlooks, as well as any extreme precipitation reports:
Here is More Climate News from Sunday:
(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article. The most noteworthy items will be listed first.)