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    Indicators of Global Climate Change 2024: annual update of key indicators of the state of the climate system and human influence


    Forster, Piers M., Smith, Chris, Walsh, Tristram, Lamb, William F., Lamboll, Robin, Cassou, Christophe, Hauser, Mathias, Hausfather, Zeke, Lee, June-Yi, Palmer, Matthew D., von Schuckmann, Karina, Slangen, Aimée B. A., Szopa, Sophie, Trewin, Blair, Yun, Jeongeun, Gillett, Nathan P., Jenkins, Stuart, Matthews, H. Damon, Raghavan, Krishnan, Ribes, Aurélien, Rogelj, Joeri, Rosen, Debbie, Zhang, Xuebin, Allen, Myles, Aleluia Reis, Lara, Andrew, Robbie M., Betts, Richard A., Borger, Alex, Broersma, Jiddu A., Burgess, Samantha N., Cheng, Lijing, Friedlingstein, Pierre, Domingues, Catia M., Gambarini, Marco, Gasser, Thomas, Gütschow, Johannes, Ishii, Masayoshi, Kadow, Christopher, Kennedy, John, Killick, Rachel E., Krummel, Paul B., Liné, Aurélien, Monselesan, Didier P., Morice, Colin, Mühle, Jens, Naik, Vaishali, Peters, Glen P., Pirani, Anna, Pongratz, Julia, Minx, Jan C., Rigby, Matthew, Rohde, Robert, Savita, Abhishek, Seneviratne, Sonia I., Thorne, Peter, Wells, Christopher, Western, Luke M., van der Werf, Guido R., Wijffels, Susan E., Masson-Delmotte, Valérie and Zhai, Panmao (2025) Indicators of Global Climate Change 2024: annual update of key indicators of the state of the climate system and human influence. Earth System Science Data, 17 (6). pp. 2641-2680. ISSN 1866-3516

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    Abstract

    In a rapidly changing climate, evidence-based decision-making benefits from up-to-date and timely information. Here we compile monitoring datasets (published at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15639576; Smith et al., 2025a) to produce updated estimates for key indicators of the state of the climate system: net emissions of greenhouse gases and short-lived climate forcers, greenhouse gas concentrations, radiative forcing, the Earth's energy imbalance, surface temperature changes, warming attributed to human activities, the remaining carbon budget, and estimates of global temperature extremes. This year, we additionally include indicators for sea-level rise and land precipitation change. We follow methods as closely as possible to those used in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) Working Group One report. The indicators show that human activities are increasing the Earth's energy imbalance and driving faster sea-level rise compared to the AR6 assessment. For the 2015–2024 decade average, observed warming relative to 1850–1900 was 1.24 [1.11 to 1.35] °C, of which 1.22 [1.0 to 1.5] °C was human-induced. The 2024-observed best estimate of global surface temperature (1.52 °C) is well above the best estimate of human-caused warming (1.36 °C). However, the 2024 observed warming can still be regarded as a typical year, considering the human-induced warming level and the state of internal variability associated with the phase of El Niño and Atlantic variability. Human-induced warming has been increasing at a rate that is unprecedented in the instrumental record, reaching 0.27 [0.2–0.4] °C per decade over 2015–2024. This high rate of warming is caused by a combination of greenhouse gas emissions being at an all-time high of 53.6±5.2 Gt CO2e yr−1 over the last decade (2014–2023), as well as reductions in the strength of aerosol cooling. Despite this, there is evidence that the rate of increase in CO2 emissions over the last decade has slowed compared to the 2000s, and depending on societal choices, a continued series of these annual updates over the critical 2020s decade could track decreases or increases in the rate of the climatic changes presented here.
    Item Type: Article
    Additional Information: The supplement related to this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-2641-2025-supplement. This research has been supported by the Natural Environment Research Council (grant no. NE/X00452X/1); the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (grant no. EP/V000772/1); the HORIZON EUROPE Framework Programme, HORIZON EUROPE Excellent Science (grant nos. 820829, 101081395, 101081661 and 821003); the EU H2020 European Research Council (grant nos. 951542 and 101137656 – EXPECT (Towards an Integrated Capability to Explain and Predict Regional Climate Changes)); the Department for Enterprise, Trade and Investment, UK Government (grant no. Met Office); the National Research Foundation of Korea (grant no. RS-2024-00416848); and the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (DARSea, project no. VI.Vidi.2023.058). Peter Thorne was supported by Co-Centre award number 22/CC/11103. The Co-Centre award is managed by Research Ireland Northern Ireland's Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and supported via the UK's International Science Partnerships Fund (ISPF) and the Irish Government's Shared Island initiative. June-Yi Lee and Jung-Eun Yun were supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant, funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (grant no. RS-2024-00416848).
    Keywords: IPCC; indicators of Global Climate Change (IGCC); Seventh Assessment Report (AR7);
    Academic Unit: Faculty of Social Sciences > Geography
    Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Institutes > Irish Climate Analysis and Research Units, ICARUS
    Item ID: 20028
    Identification Number: 10.5194/essd-17-2641-2025
    Depositing User: Corinne Voces
    Date Deposited: 19 Jun 2025 15:27
    Journal or Publication Title: Earth System Science Data
    Publisher: Copernicus Publications
    Refereed: Yes
    Related URLs:
    URI: https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/id/eprint/20028
    Use Licence: This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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