Scientists from Copernicus, the EU Earth observation programme, have confirmed that 2024 was the hottest year ever recorded and the first to breach the 1.5 degree global heating limit, after which the impacts of climate change become unpredictably dangerous.

The analysis published on Friday contains a list of record-breaking data observed in 2024.

Last year the global average temperature was 15.1°C, 0.72 degrees above the 1991-2020 average, 0.12 degrees above 2023 – the previous warmest year – and 1.6 degrees above pre-industrial levels (the 1850-1900 period).

The monthly global average temperature exceeded the 1.5 degree threshold for 11 months of the year.

Dutch weather institute KNMI said at the end of December 2024 had been extremely warm with the average temperature equalling that of the record year 2023 at 11.8°.

The Netherlands, says the KNMI’s Karin van der Wiel, is warming up more quickly than average. “One of the reasons is that the Netherlands is land, not an ocean. The land is warming up more quickly than the seas.”

In Europe, 2024 was also the warmest year on record, with an average temperature of 10.69°C, 1.47 degrees above the 1991-2020 period. Southern and central Europe and the Alps were especially affected.

2024 was also the warmest year for ‘sizeable’ parts of the ocean, particularly the North Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and the western Pacific. The extent of sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctica was “significantly below average”.

Copernicus says extreme air and sea surface temperatures are mainly due to human-induced climate change. Concentrations in the atmosphere of carbon dioxide and methane, the two main greenhouse gases, which are caused by human activities, continued to increase and reached new record levels in 2024, the EU agency warned.

“Each year in the last decade is one of the 10 warmest on record. We are now teetering on the edge of passing the 1.5 degree level defined in the Paris Agreement and the average of the last two years is already above this level,” said Samantha Burgess, from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, which operates Copernicus climate programme.

“All of the internationally produced global temperature datasets show that 2024 was the hottest year since records began in 1850,” said Carlo Buontempo, eirector of the Copernicus Climate Change Service. “Humanity is in charge of its own destiny but how we respond to the climate challenge should be based on evidence. The future is in our hands – swift and decisive action can still alter the trajectory of our future climate.”

The Paris climate agreement, adopted by 195 countries in 2015, aims to limit the increase in global average temperatures to ‘well below’ two degrees above pre-industrial levels while ‘pursuing efforts’ to get below the 1.5 degree limit.

Copernicus scientists say that passing the 1.5 degree threshold last year does not breach the Paris Agreement as this refers to temperature anomalies over at least 20 years. However, “it underscores that global temperatures are rising beyond what modern humans have ever experienced.”