Climate Crisis: May 2024 Hottest On Record Worldwide; When Can Relief From the Heat Be Expected?

The world has just experienced its hottest May since records began, according to the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S). This marks the 12th consecutive month of unprecedented high temperatures. Before this 12-month streak, the previous longest streak of record monthly temperatures lasted seven months between 2015 and 2016.

In May, the global average temperature was 1.52 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average, reported C3S. This month was also the 11th in a row since July 2023 to be at or above 1.5 degrees Celsius compared with pre-industrial times.

However, this does not mean the 1.5 degrees Celsius warming limit set by the 2015 Paris Agreement has been breached, as this limit is measured over decades, not individual years.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is continuously warning that the world is approaching the limits set by the Paris Agreement. The international community agreed to limit temperature rise this century to a maximum of 2 degrees Celsius above the 1850-1900 baseline. The WMO projects that temperatures for each year between 2024 and 2028 will be between 1.1 and 1.9 degrees Celsius higher than this baseline.

What Does NASA Discover?

In addition to C3S, NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) researchers have noted that average global temperatures for the past 12 months have hit new highs each month. This aligns with a long-term warming trend driven primarily by human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, becoming evident over the past four decades.

NASA's analysis uses a temperature baseline defined by several decades, typically 30 years. NASA scientists gather data from thousands of meteorological stations on land and instruments on ships and buoys to calculate Earth's global temperature. This data is analysed to account for factors like the varied spacing of temperature stations and urban heating effects.

What Is Happening Worldwide?

The extreme temperatures caused a wide range of effects in different regions of the world. Heavy rains led to widespread flooding in central Europe, while the United Kingdom and Ireland experienced wetter-than-average weather. Southwestern Asia faced extreme flooding, and unseasonal typhoons affected Japan, the Philippines, and China. Meanwhile, Mexico and parts of the U.S. and Canada saw drier-than-average weather, resulting in droughts and wildfires.

What Is Happening In India?

In India, a sluggish southwest monsoon on Wednesday covered large parts of Maharashtra, awaiting a fresh pulse to move across central and northern regions, which continued to suffer from intense heat.

Heatwave conditions were observed on Wednesday in most parts of Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, and Jharkhand; in many parts of north Rajasthan; in some parts of Himachal Pradesh, south Bihar, north Odisha, and isolated pockets of Gangetic West Bengal.

Severe heatwave conditions were also seen in isolated pockets of Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, and Jharkhand. Maximum temperatures ranged from 45 to 47 degrees Celsius was recorded in some parts of west Jharkhand, south Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, and north Rajasthan.

When Can Relief From the Heat Be Expected?

Natural phenomena like El Nino and La Nina, which warm and cool the tropical Pacific Ocean, can contribute to year-to-year variability in global temperatures. The strong El Nino that began in the spring of 2023 helped fuel last year's extreme summer and autumn heat.

La Nina, which lowers global temperatures, is expected to begin later this year, according to the WMO. As of May 2024, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) projected a 49 per cent chance of La Nina developing between June and August, and a 69 per cent chance between July and September. A La Nina event could partially suppress average global temperatures this year by cooling the tropical Pacific.

However, scientists warn that the cooling effect of La Nina could be minuscule compared to the impact of human-caused global warming, which has already raised global temperatures by at least 1.2 degrees Celsius since the late 19th century.