The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said in its report released on World Environment Day on Wednesday that there is an 80% likelihood that the annual average global temperature will temporarily exceed 1.5 degree Celsius — the Paris Agreement threshold — above pre-industrial levels for at least one of the next five years. There is a strong possibility that at least one year between 2024 and 28 will set a new temperature record, beating 2023, which is currently the warmest year on record.
It also happens to be the day that the Copernicus Climate Change Service of the European Commission formally announced that May 2024 was the hottest May in history, completing a 12-month streak of the hottest months ever. In 2023, the average near-surface temperature worldwide was 1.45 degrees Celsius (with a ± 0.12 degree Celsius range of error) higher than the pre-industrial baseline.
While the WMO study serves as a sobering reminder that global warming is approaching the 1.5 degree Celsius threshold, it should be understood that this threshold pertains to long-term temperature increases spanning decades, not spikes over a period of one to five years.
Additionally, the WMO stated that the global mean near-surface temperature for each year between 2024 and 2028 is expected to exceed the 1850–1900 baseline by 1.1–1.9 degrees Celsius, indicating an 86% chance that at least one of these years would establish a new temperature record.
With 1.63 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial norm of 1850–1900, the worldwide average temperature for the past 12 months (June 2023–May 2024) was also the highest on record, based on the 12 monthly records. A strong El Niño, a climate trend linked to surface warming in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, raised global temperatures last year.
Despite the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) near-term forecast of a developing La Niña and a return to colder conditions in the tropical Pacific, the prospect of rising global temperatures over the next five years is indicative of the ongoing warming caused by greenhouse emissions.
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