People around the world endured an average of 41 additional days of dangerous heat in 2024 due to human-caused climate change, according to a group of scientists. They also reported that climate change exacerbated much of the world’s severe weather throughout the year.
The analysis, conducted by researchers from World Weather Attribution and Climate Central, comes at the close of a year that set numerous climate records. Global heat in 2024 made it likely to be the hottest year ever recorded, and a series of deadly weather events affected many regions.
“The finding is devastating but not surprising: Climate change played a role, often a major one, in most of the events we studied, making heatwaves, droughts, tropical cyclones, and heavy rainfall more frequent and intense around the world, destroying lives and livelihoods of millions, often affecting people whose suffering went uncounted,” said Friederike Otto, lead researcher for World Weather Attribution and climate scientist at Imperial College, during a media briefing. “As long as the world continues burning fossil fuels, this will only worsen.”
Millions of people endured extreme heat in 2024. Northern California and Death Valley sweltered. Intense daytime temperatures scorched Mexico and Central America. Vulnerable children in West Africa faced dangerously high temperatures. Southern Europe saw soaring temperatures that forced Greece to close the Acropolis. In South and Southeast Asia, heatwaves led to school closures. The Earth experienced some of its hottest days ever recorded and its hottest summer yet, with a 13-month heat streak that only recently came to an end.
To conduct its heat analysis, the team of international scientists compared daily temperatures worldwide in 2024 to those that would have occurred in a world without climate change. While the results have not yet been peer-reviewed, the researchers employed peer-reviewed methods.
Some regions experienced 150 days or more of extreme heat due to climate change.
What’s more, heat-related deaths are often underreported.
Jennifer Francis, a climate scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Cape Cod who was not involved in the research, affirmed that the science and findings were sound.
“Extreme weather will continue to become more frequent, intense, destructive, costly, and deadly, until we can reduce the concentration of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere,” she said.
The United Nations Environment Programme warned in the fall that significantly more climate extremes could occur without action, as more planet-warming carbon dioxide has been released into the atmosphere this year from burning fossil fuels than in the previous year.
However, the deaths and damages from extreme weather events are not inevitable, said Julie Arrighi, director of programs at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre and part of the research.
“Countries can reduce those impacts by preparing for and adapting to climate change.
