Pace of warming has doubled since 1980s
The rate of global heating in the period 2012-2024 has roughly doubled from the 1980s according to the latest peer-reviewed update of “Indicators of Global Climate Change” published today in Earth System Science Data with contributions from scientists at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impacts (PIK).
“Indicators of Global Climate Change” provides an up-to-date snapshot of the state of the climate, carried out by a team of over 60 scientists from institutes all over the world. PIK scientist William Lamb led its section on greenhouse gas emissions.
The latest update, providing a snapshot of 2024, includes two additional indicators to the existing eight: sea-level rise and global land precipitation.
The study finds human activities have resulted in the equivalent of around 53 billion tonnes of CO2 being released into the atmosphere each year over the last decade on average, primarily from burning fossil fuels and deforestation. In 2024, emissions from international aviation – the sector with the steepest drop in emissions during the pandemic – returned to pre-pandemic levels.
“These trends are primarily driven by fossil fuels, with smaller contributions from deforestation, agriculture and other activities,” comments PIK author Lamb.
In 2024, the observed global surface temperature rise relative to pre-industrial levels was 1.52 degrees Celsius (°C), of which 1.36°C can be attributed to human activity.
Reaching 1.5°C of global temperature rise in a single year is not the same as long-term warming of 1.5°C – the limit enshrined in the Paris Agreement. However, these results do reaffirm how far and fast emissions are heading in the wrong direction. Warming will only stop when CO2 emissions reach net zero.
Piers Forster, Director of the Priestley Centre for Climate Futures at the University of Leeds and lead author of the study said, “temperatures have risen year-on-year since the last IPCC report in 2021, highlighting how climate policies and pace of climate action are not keeping up”.
Between 2019 and 2024, global mean sea level has increased by around 26 millimetres, which translates to a rate of about 4.3 millimetres per year – more than doubling the long-term rate of 1.8 millimetres per year seen since the turn of the twentieth century.
PIK co-author Lamb concludes, “until we shift energy supplies to renewable and clean technologies, and land use practices to sustainable methods, atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations will continue to rise. A failure to act decisively on emissions in the next few years will leave current and future generations with intensifying and dramatic climate change impacts”.
