The Hydrometeorological Center called 2024 the warmest year for the period of instrumental observations

Last year, 2024 was the warmest for the period of instrumental observations since 1850. This was stated by Roman Vilfand, scientific director of the Russian Hydrometeorological Center, during a press conference in Izvestia on January 16.

"Now we can already say quite confidently that the past year was the warmest in the history of instrumental observations, and it is very interesting that it was the second consecutive warmest," he said.

The expert also noted that 2023 was also a record year. So, this fact is interesting to climatologists, but is alarming. The average annual temperature across the planet reached 15.1 degrees. At the same time, on July 22, the average daily temperature on Earth was +17.16 degrees Celsius. The day became the hottest in the history of observations.

In Moscow, the average annual temperature amounted to +8 degrees Celsius. September was especially hot, the speaker specified. At the same time in February stood out a high level of snow cover - more than 60 cm.

Earlier, Gail Whiteman, a sociologist from the University of Exeter in the UK, who studies climate risks, reported that the average temperature of the Earth in 2024 for the first time rose more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level. According to the expert, this is an alarming signal.

Before that, on January 9, Sergei Yazev, director of the Astronomical Observatory of Irkutsk State University and senior researcher at the Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Izvestia that the increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is probably not the cause, but a consequence of ocean warming.