NORTH SOUND, AUG. 19: The American Meteorological Society (AMS) recently released the 35th annual State of the Climate report. The report highlights the warming planet, both on land and at sea.
The AMS advances atmospheric and related sciences, technologies, applications, and services. Founded in 1919, the AMS has a membership of about 12,000 professionals, students, and weather enthusiasts. The State of the Climate report involved 589 scientists from 58 countries.
A big finding was that the average global temperatures both on land and in the oceans reached all-time record highs, breaking the new record set just the previous year in 2023. The back-to-back record warm years were the first since 2015 and 2016, when those years did the same. The report noted that the last 10 years (2015-2024) were the 10 warmest years on record. Temperature measurements go back well over 150 years – into the mid-1800s.
The primary reason behind the record global temperatures was the three main greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, and nitrous oxide, all of which hit record average highs. For CO2, the global average level reached 422.8 parts per million, a 52% increase from the late 1800s pre-industrial level of about 278 parts per million. The rise in the amount of CO2 globally has grown more sharply since the 1960s.
North America, including the United States, was the warmest in its 115-year record. Some U.S. highlights, Las Vegas hit an all-time record high of 120 degrees on July 7, 2024. Phoenix had 113 straight days of 100 degrees or warmer, crushing the former record of 76 consecutive days in 1993.
In a recent study by researcher Dr. Yupong Guan, he found that from the 1950s to 2011, global summers have grown 3.4 days longer per decade, leaving the other three seasons shorter. The AMS State of the Climate reports so far this century reflect this continued warming of the planet with longer summers and overall warmer temperatures for all four seasons.
The longer, warmer summers have also led to more heat waves and wildfires around the globe. In 2024, Canada suffered a severe drought, leading to hundreds of wildfires and smoke that spread south into the U.S.
Global average ocean temperatures also reached their warmest level on record in 2024. These warmer ocean temperatures helped fuel tropical cyclones (e.g. – hurricanes) around the globe, along with more intense storms. November’s ‘bomb cyclone’ off the Pacific Northwest coast last year was but one example.
Scientists behind the report follow 58 glaciers around the globe, and all 58 lost ice again last year, the most ever recorded. One example was the Mendenhall glacier outside of Juneau, Alaska, that had a glacial outburst of melting ice in 2024, flooding low-lying parts of Alaska’s capital city. The same glacier suffered another glacial outburst last week, again creating flooding conditions.
Global mean sea levels also climbed to their highest ever on record for the 13th straight year, according to the report. Mean sea levels in 2024 were about 4 inches higher than the 1993 average. The expansion of ocean waters due to warmer sea temperatures and melt from glaciers and ice sheets contributed to the higher sea levels.
Warmer global temperatures also impacted the amount of water in the atmosphere. Evaporation from land areas in the Northern Hemisphere reached one of the highest annual values on record last year. The amount of water vapor in the air reached an all-time record high in 2024, creating more humid conditions, including across the North Sound.
As a result, precipitation was globally high with 2024 the third-wettest on record. Extreme rainfall (heavy amounts of rain) was the wettest on record. Heavier rainfall events led to more flash floods and flooding events around the globe. One key example was the flooding involving heavy rainfall from former Hurricane Helene last September that occurred in North Carolina and other parts of the southern and mid-Appalachian Mountain region.
“The State of the Climate report is an annual scientific landmark,” said American Meteorological Society President David J. Stensrud. “It is a truly global effort, in which hundreds of researchers from universities, government agencies, and more come together to provide a careful, rigorously peer-reviewed report on our planet’s climate. High-quality observations and findings from all over the world are incorporated, underscoring the vital importance of observations to monitor, and climate science to understand, our environment. The results affirm the reality of our changing climate, with 2024 global temperatures reaching record highs.”
Corrected Aug. 20, the drought in Canada was severe, but not the worst in its history.
