CLIMATE
WMO confirms 2024 as warmest year on record
March 19, 2025 - A report from the World Meteorological Organisation confirms that 2024 was the hottest year on record and the first year to be more than 1.5°C above the pre-industrial era.
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With the addition of 2024, yet another record-hot year, the past 10 years have been the 10 hottest in nearly 200 years of record-keeping, the WMO reports.
2024 was the single warmest year on record, surpassing even 2023’s wide lead over other recent years. The planet’s surface was approximately 1.55°C warmer than its average during a reference period that approximates the pre-industrial era, from 1850-1900.
The annual report from the WMO, a United Nations agency, includes input from dozens of experts and institutions from around the world and sheds further light on the record-breaking heat of 2024 and places it in the context of Earth’s long-term warming from climate change.
The extra energy in the atmosphere and the oceans helped fuel climate-related disasters around the globe. Extreme weather events like drought, storms and wildfires displaced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes, the report says, according to the New York Times.