Global avg temperature breached 1.5° C threshold in past 12 months: C3S

June was the 13th month in a row that temperatures have been record high, despite the developing La Nina conditions, European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said on Monday. The data from June indicates that for an entire year now (past 12 months), global average temperatures have breached Paris Agreement’s 1.5 degree C goal.

June 2024 was warmer globally than any previous June in the data record, with an average ERA5 (1940 onwards) surface air temperature of 16.66 degree C, 0.67 degree C above the 1991-2020 average for June and 0.14 degree C above the previous high set in June 2023.

While unusual, a similar streak of monthly global temperature records happened previously in 2015/2016, an El Nino year. “According to ERA5 data, the month was 1.50 degree C above the estimated June average for 1850-1900, the designated pre-industrial reference period, making it the twelfth consecutive month to reach or break the 1.5 degree C threshold,” Copernicus said.

“The global-average temperature for the past 12 months (July 2023 – June 2024) is the highest on record, at 0.76 degree C above the 1991-2020 average and 1.64 degree C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average,” it added.

Breaching the 1.5 degree C threshold for a year is not equivalent to failing the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement sets long-term goals to guide all nations to substantially reduce global greenhouse gas emissions to limit the global temperature increase in this century to 2 degree C while pursuing efforts to limit the increase even further to 1.5 degree C, to avoid or reduce adverse impacts and related losses and damages.

There is an 80% chance that Paris Agreement’s 1.5 degree C goal will be breached during at least one (annual average) of the next 5 years, the Geneva based World Meteorological Organisation’s Global Annual to Decadal Climate Update has warned in June. There is also an 86% likelihood that at least one of these years will set a new temperature record, beating 2023 which is currently the warmest year.

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