2024 has a one-in-three chance of being even warmer than 2023, which was already the warmest on record, scientists from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said on Friday.

In its annual analysis of the global climate, NOAA confirmed the conclusions of scientists from the European Union, according to which 2023 was the warmest year on recordin 1850, 1.35 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average.

According to NOAA, the amount of heat stored in the upper oceans also reached a record high last year.

The World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) annual global temperature report, compiled from several recognized databases, confirmed on Friday that 2023 was “by far” the hottest year on record, AFP reported.

In 2023, the global average annual temperature was 1.45 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels (1850-1900), just below the 1.48 degrees Celsius calculated by the European Copernicus Observatory in its annual report published on Tuesday.

The Paris climate agreement set a goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The impact of the El Niño phenomenon

The 2023 record was made possible by climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels, as well as the El Niño climate pattern that appeared in the middle of the year. El Nino is a natural event that leads to warming of the surface waters of the eastern Pacific Ocean and an increase in global temperatures, Reuters reports.

Celeste Saulo, who took over as head of the WMO, warned that El Niño, which emerged in mid-2023, was likely to push mercury levels even higher in 2024. “Given that El Niño generally has a greater impact on global temperatures after the peak, 2024 could be even warmer” than last year, Saulo said, as quoted by AFP.

El Niño is expected to persist until at least April, making 2024 more likely to be another record year.

“An interesting and depressing question is what will happen in 2024. Will it be warmer than 2023? We don’t know yet,” said Christopher Hewitt, head of the WMO’s International Climate Services Division.

NOAA said there is a one in three chance that 2024 will be warmer than 2023, also saying there is a 99% chance that this year will be one of the five warmest on record.

“(El Nino) is very likely to stick around into April, maybe May, and then after that, we’re not sure — it becomes less certain,” Hewitt said.

The influence of El Niño usually peaks during the Northern Hemisphere winter and then weakens, moving into either neutral conditions or a La Niña phase, which usually leads to lower global temperatures. However, there is also the risk of El Niño returning.

“If we were to go into a La Niña phase … 2024 may not be the warmest on record,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of the European Copernicus Climate Change Service.

As it’s summer in the Southern Hemisphere, when El Niño is at its peak, authorities are warning of heat waves, drought and wildfires.

This week, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology has declared an extreme heat wave in the state of Western Australia.

In southern Africa, “we are very concerned about the risk of dry spells in January and February with a high probability of below-average rainfall,” said Lark Walters, an adviser to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (Fews Net).

“We estimate that over 20 million will require emergency food assistance,” Walters added.

“Just a picture of the catastrophic future that awaits us”

For Celeste Saulo, climate change is “the biggest challenge facing humanity.”

Atmospheric concentrations of the three main heat-trapping gases — carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide — continued to rise in 2023 after reaching record levels in 2022, according to a WMO report published in November.

“Climate change is intensifying – and it is clearly caused by human activity,” Saulo said, emphasizing the urgency of the situation. “We cannot afford to wait any longer. We are already taking action, but we need to do more and move fast,” she said.

“We must drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and accelerate the transition to renewable energy sources,” Saulo insisted, echoing the opinion of many scientists.

UN Secretary General António Guterres condemned the actions of humanity that are “burning the Earth”.

“2023 is just a picture of the catastrophic future that awaits us if we don’t act now,” Guterres warned, as quoted by AFP.

The WMO noted that each decade since the 1980s has been warmer than the previous one, and that the nine warmest years were between 2015 and 2023.

According to the WMO, the 10-year average temperature from 2014 to 2023 was 1.2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average.

Although the average surface temperature of the Earth will exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius in 2024, this does not mean that the world has not reached the goal of the Paris Agreement to limit global warming below this threshold. This will only happen after several consecutive years with values ​​above this reference level.