October 2024 was the fifteenth month, out of a period of 16, in which the Earth’s temperature exceeded the figure considered safe by science, 1.5°C (above pre-industrial thermometers). Last month, according to the European climate change service Copernicus, it far exceeded it: the mercury rose by 1.65°C..
The tenth month was therefore placed 0.80 degrees above the average temperature between 1991 and 2020. Thus, Copernicus confirms that over the last 12 months, thermometers have been on average 0.74 degrees higher than over the last three decades.
The EU service also warns thatAnd The surface temperature of the Union was 10.83°C. This represents, they specify, 1.23°C above the average of the last three decades.
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There is no doubt that October was a particularly hot month in Europe – and indeed across the planet. Of course, the record did not exceed that set by the thermometers in 2022, where a warming of 1.92°C was exceeded which set off all the alarms.
Samantha Burgessdirector of Copernicus, assures in a press release that “After 10 months, we can say that 2024 will be the hottest year” ever recorded. According to him, this “marks a new stage in global temperatures and should serve to raise the ambitions of the climate summit” which begins next week.
The sea is not free
In recent weeks it has been explained how abnormally high temperatures in the Mediterranean Sea are the cause of extreme weather phenomena such as DANA which hit the Spanish coast. Today, Corpernicus reconfirms what the scientific community explains.
And that’s it The global average sea surface temperature in October reached 20.68°C.. This would be the second highest value for this month, exceeded only by 0.10 degrees in 2023. The exceptions that prove the rule would be the eastern Pacific and the central Pacific, with thermometers below average. According to Copernicus, this indicates “an evolution towards La Niña conditions”.
The poles and their seas are not spared either. Arctic sea ice is the fourth lowest for the month of October. Concretely, it is 19% lower than the average. Furthermore, according to the European service, these anomalies were also visible in the peripheral frozen masses of the Arctic Ocean.
Likewise, Antarctica’s ice was the second lowest in history for a month of October (8% below average), just behind that accumulated in 2023. Moreover, Copernicus insists on the fact that “sea ice concentration anomalies in the Southern Ocean continued to be dominated by concentrations well below average in the Indian Ocean sector, as has been the case since July.
More precipitation
At the hydrological level, Copernicus recalls that In October, precipitation was above average in the Iberian Peninsula, France, northern Italy, Norway, northern Sweden and eastern Black Sea.
To reflect the “severity” of the rains, the European service takes the floods in the Valencia region of Spain as an example. Humidity also increased above normal in China, Taiwan, Florida (United States) – where the devastation of Hurricane Milton could be seen – and parts of Australia and Brazil .
In contrast, Eastern Europe, western Russia and Turkey experienced unusually dry Octobers. As also happened in much of the United States, in central Australia, in the south of the African continent, in Madagascar, Argentina and Chile.
