Industry News
The European Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) announced today, February 8, that January 2024 was the warmest January on record across the globe. C3S publishes climate bulletins every month that report on changes observed in global surface air and sea temperatures, sea ice cover, and hydrological variables. For January 2024, these measurements show that global temperatures were 0.70°C above the 30-year average from 1991-2020. This marks the eighth month in a row that records for the respective month have been broken. January 2024 was also 1.66°C warmer than an estimate of the January average for 1850-1900, the designated pre-industrial reference period.
C3S was implemented by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts on behalf of the European Commission with funding from the EU. All the reported findings are based on computer-generated analyses and according to the ERA5 reanalysis dataset, using billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft, and weather stations around the world. The report showed that the global temperature anomaly for January 2024 was lower than those of the last six months of 2023, but higher than any before July 2023. The global mean temperature for the past 12 months is 0.64°C above the 1991-2020 average and 1.52°C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average, making it the highest 12-month period on record.
Temperatures across Europe in January 2024 varied from much below the 30-year average in the Nordic countries to much above average in southern Europe. Outside Europe, temperatures were well above average over eastern Canada, north-western Africa, the Middle East, and central Asia, and below average over western Canada, the central USA, and most of eastern Siberia.
El Niño began to weaken in the equatorial Pacific, but marine air temperatures in general remained at an unusually high level. The average global sea surface temperature (SST) for January over 60°S–60°N reached 20.97°C, a record for January, 0.26°C warmer than the previous warmest January, in 2016, and second highest value for any month in the ERA5 dataset, within 0.01°C of the record from August 2023 (20.98°C). Since January 31, the daily SST for 60°S–60°N has reached new absolute records, surpassing the previous highest values from August 23 and 24, 2023.
“2024 starts with another record-breaking month – not only is it the warmest January on record but we have also just experienced a 12-month period of more than 1.5°C above the pre-industrial reference period. Rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are the only way to stop global temperatures increasing.”
— Samantha Burgess, Deputy Director C3S
January 2024 Sea Ice Highlights:
- Arctic sea ice extent was close to average, and the highest for January since 2009.
- Sea ice concentrations were above average in the Greenland Sea (a persistent feature since October) and the Sea of Okhotsk while below-average concentrations prevailed in the Labrador Sea.
- Antarctic sea ice extent was the sixth lowest for January, at 18% below average, well above the lowest January value recorded in 2023 (-31%).
- Below-average sea ice concentrations prevailed mainly in the Ross and Amundsen Seas, northern Weddell Sea, and along the coast of East Antarctica.
January 2024 Hydrological Highlights:
- In January 2024, it was wetter than average in large parts of Europe, with storms impacting north- and south-western Europe
- Drier-than-average conditions were seen in south-eastern and northern Spain and the Maghreb, southern UK, Ireland, eastern Iceland, most of Scandinavia, part of north-western Russia, and the eastern Balkans.
- Beyond Europe, it was wetter than average in several regions, including western and south-eastern USA, a large region of Eurasia, south-eastern South America, southeast Africa, and northern and eastern Australia.
- Drier-than-average conditions were seen across parts of western and southern North America, Canada, the Horn of Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, south central Asia. Australia, and Chile saw the dry conditions contribute to wildfires.
