February 2024 marked the hottest on record in India since formal temperature recording commenced in 1901. The country experienced an unprecedented average maximum temperature of 29.5 degrees Celsius. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) predicts an upcoming hotter-than-normal summer in various regions, including the northeast, east, central, and several areas in the northwest, including Delhi-NCR, from March to May.
Along with India, the previous month marked the warmest February on a global scale, marking the ninth consecutive month of historically high temperatures worldwide. This trend, driven by climate change, is propelling the world into what European climate monitors describe as "uncharted territory."
Over the past year, the world has witnessed a barrage of storms, and droughts leading to crop failures, and destructive fires. Human-induced climate change, exacerbated by the naturally occurring El Niño weather phenomenon, has heightened temperatures to levels likely unmatched in over 100,000 years.
Since June 2023, every successive month has established new temperature records for that particular time of the year. The global sea surface has reached unprecedented warmth, and Antarctic sea-ice levels have once again plummeted to extreme lows. While the El Niño weather event in the Pacific continues to contribute to elevated temperatures, it is evident that human-induced climate change remains the predominant force driving this warmth. Scientists express concern about the planet potentially surpassing a crucial climate threshold, heightening worries about the likelihood of an active Atlantic hurricane season.
The United Nations climate agency reports that carbon dioxide concentrations have reached their highest levels in at least two million years, and they have increased by nearly record amounts over the past year.
The warming gases played a significant role in elevating February 2024 to a temperature approximately 1.77 degrees Celsius higher than the "pre-industrial" era, which predates widespread fossil fuel burning by humans, as reported by the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service. This surpasses the previous record set in 2016 by about 0.12 degrees Celsius. A study released on Wednesday by the nonprofit research organization Climate Central revealed that over half of the global population, totaling 4.8 billion people, encountered at least one day of unusually warm temperatures this winter, a scenario deemed nearly impossible without the influence of human-caused climate change.
