The Earth, halfway to reaching the heat of the Pliocene in just 150 years

Madrid. The Earth is halfway to reaching the heat of the Pliocene – with ice-free poles – in just 150 years, after recording another record year of high temperatures in 2024, according to NASA analysis.

Global temperatures in 2024 were 1.28 degrees Celsius higher than the agency’s 20th century baseline (1951-1980), surpassing the record set in 2023.

The new mark comes after 15 consecutive months (June 2023 to August 2024) of monthly temperature records, a streak of unprecedented heat.

NASA scientists further estimated that Earth’s temperature in 2024 was about 1.47 degrees Celsius warmer than the average for the mid-19th century (1850-1900). For more than half of 2024, average temperatures were more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the baseline, and the annual average, with mathematical uncertainties, may have surpassed the level for the first time.

The Paris Agreement on climate change sets out efforts to stay below 1.5 degrees in the long term. To put it in perspective, temperatures during warm periods on Earth three million years ago, when sea levels were dozens of feet higher than today, were only about 3 degrees warmer than preindustrial levels.Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York, said in a statement. We are halfway to reaching Pliocene-level heat in just 150 years.

The Pliocene began 5.33 million years ago and ended 2.59 million years ago. The average sea levels were then 25 meters above current levels due to the thawing of the poles.

Greenhouse gas emissions

Scientists have concluded that the warming trend of the past decades is due to carbon dioxide, methane and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases. In 2022 and 2023, Earth experienced record increases in carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels, according to a recent international analysis. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased from pre-industrial levels in the 18th century of about 278 parts per million to about 420 parts per million today.

Temperatures of individual years can be influenced by natural climate fluctuations such as The Child y The Girlwhich alternately warm and cool the tropical Pacific Ocean.

The heat increase that began in 2023 continued to exceed expectations in 2024, Schmidt noted, even though The Child decreased. Researchers are working to identify contributing factors, including potential climate impacts from the 2022 Tonga volcanic eruption and pollution reductions, that may change cloud cover and how solar energy is reflected back to the earth. space.

Not every year will break records, but the long-term trend is clearSchmidt said. We are already seeing the impact in extreme rainfall, heat waves and increased risk of flooding, which will continue to worsen as emissions continue..

NASA compiles its temperature record using surface air temperature data collected from tens of thousands of weather stations, as well as sea surface temperature data acquired by ship- and buoy-based instruments. These data are analyzed using methods that take into account the varying distance between temperature stations around the world and the effects of urban warming that could bias the calculations.