Earth is burning: 2025 may get hotter since 2024 was listed as the warmest year in nearly two centuries.
The just ended 2024 is recorded to have had the highest temperatures ever experienced in the past two centuries and counting.
Since the trend in global temperatures keeps going upwards, 2025 is likely to get even hotter.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) the year 2024 featured a record-breaking heat and is officially the hottest one to ever been recorded.
The year 2024 remains the warmest the world has been since experts started tracking data, which should be more than 175 years ago.
The earth’s average land and ocean surface temperature has been reaching 2.32°F (1.29°C) above the 20th century average, as far as National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s National Centers for Environmental Information is concerned.
This surpassed the previous record set in 2023, highlighting the rapid pace of global warming taking its toll onto the earth.
On the other hand, weather experts reveal that the planet’s 10 warmest years have all occurred within the last decade, between 2013 and 2024.
Experts point out that 2024 was the warmest year in a multi-dataset record of global temperature going back to 1850.
Also, 2024 had a global average temperature of 15.10°C; 0.12°C higher than the previous highest annual value in 2023.
Again 2024 was 0.72°C warmer than the 1991–2020 average, and 1.60°C warmer than the pre-industrial level, making it the first calendar year to exceed 1.5 above that level.
The last ten years have been the warmest ten years on record.
Each month from January to June 2024 was warmer than the corresponding month in any previous year.
August 2024 equaled the record warmth of August 2023 and the remaining months from July to December were each the second warmest for the time of year, after the corresponding months in 2023.
Adding to the concerning trends, Antarctic sea ice coverage during its maximum extent in September and minimum extent in February ranked among the lowest ever observed.
Meanwhile, Arctic sea ice fared slightly better but still ranked seventh lowest on record.
Sea waters have also been getting warmer. Ocean heat content, another crucial climate indicator, also hit an all-time high in 2024.
The snow cap which crowns Africa’s highest peak on Kilimanjaro, in Tanzania, has also been receding in recent years, with its melting glaciers resulting in floods in farms located at the foot of the mountain and further downstream.
Mount Kilimanjaro has also been suffering from series of bush fires in recent years.