The average annual temperature of the planet is a mathematical calculation made with measurements taken around the world over the course of a year. As Carlo Buontempo (Rome, 52 years old), director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service — the European Union’s Earth observation program — points out, the main bodies that monitor the world’s climate use different data and methodologies. However, this week these groups presented their 2024 assessment in near-synchronicity, and the results are “very, very similar.” “These are not opinions, they’re facts,” says the Italian climatologist, who is concerned that society is not taking advantage of the enormous quantity of scientific information now available on the planet’s climate imbalance.Question. Every year of the last decade (from 2015 to 2024) has been among the 10 warmest years on record on Earth. Is climate change intensifying?Answer. We can’t say based on the data we have, because in the climate system, when it comes to atmospheric observations, there can be a lot of variability. It is still too early to say that what we are experiencing is an acceleration of warming. But it is true that the last 10 years have been the warmest on record.Q. Why do Copernicus climatologists say that 2024 was the warmest year on record, since 1850, if this warming is unprecedented in thousands of years?A. It’s likely that 2024 was the warmest year of the last 100,000 years. We say [that it is the warmest year] on record to emphasize that since the mid-19th century, we have had enough meteorological data in various places around the world to be able to reconstruct the climate average over 50 years fairly reliably. Prior to 1850, records were sparser. The earliest records are from the United Kingdom, measuring the average temperature of central England, and those start in the mid-17th century. We do not have direct observations from earlier than that. We instead have to use tree rings, lake deposits, Antarctic air bubbles, which are more indirect measures of the climate situation and have higher uncertainty. Even so, during that period, the climate was quite a bit colder, so it is very likely. The IPCC [the United Nations’ main scientific panel for the study of climate change] says that these current global temperature thresholds have never been reached during the last 100,000 years.Q. This year NASA, the World Meteorological Organization, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the London Met Office presented their results on the same day as Copernicus. Were there any differences between them?A. I think that was a sign of strength, security, of the results. Each of these global centers works with different data, with different methodologies, with different personnel, but their results are very, very similar. All conclude that 2024 was the warmest year and that the last 10 years were the warmest. And in most cases, they found that 2024 was the first year to reach 1.5 d
Lun. Gen 20th, 2025
