2023 was just confirmed as the hottest year on record, with global average temperatures 1.48°C above pre-industrial conditions, the European Union's Copernicus program recently reported. Already a year ago, climatologists at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center – Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS) were able to predict with high probability that 2023 would be the warmest year on record, based on the center's own decadal prediction system.
After the record-breaking conditions of 2023, the question is what will things look like in 2024 and beyond? Recently released decadal forecasts from the BSC show that the planet's average annual surface temperatures in 2024 could exceed those in 2023 and will continue to rise in subsequent years as long as greenhouse gas emissions continue.
Climatologists from the Climate Variability and Change (CVC) group of the BSC Department of Geosciences have just announced their forecast for the next ten years, i.e. for the period 2024 to 2033.
The BSC's decadal prediction system predicts that the planet's average annual surface temperature in 2024 will be between 1.43 and 1.69 °C above pre-industrial levels (defined as the average temperature between 1850 and 1900), with a central estimate of 1.54°C.
Forecasts for the coming years
This means that temperatures in 2024 are likely to be higher than in 2023 and there is a high probability (74%) that the global annual average temperature will exceed the 1.5 °C threshold above pre-industrial levels for the first time.
Warming is mainly due to the continued emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere due to human activities, particularly the burning of fossil fuels.
El Niño conditions occurring in the Pacific Ocean, expected to peak in the winter of 2023 to 2024, are also contributing to the exceptionally warm global average temperatures.
BSC researcher Roberto Bilbao, the main person responsible for the BSC's decadal prediction, explains: “Our decadal prediction system allows us to predict both interannual fluctuations and longer-term warming trends, while taking into account the influences of carbon emissions. Greenhouse gases and aerosols, as well as the natural variability of the climate system.”
Surface temperatures are predicted to continue rising over the next decade due to continued greenhouse gas emissions. The BSC forecast system predicts global average temperatures to be between 1.49 and 1.79 °C and 1.67 and 1.94 °C above pre-industrial levels over the next two decades (2024-2028 and 2029-2033). could.
Even if the annual average temperature exceeds the 1.5 degree threshold in 2024, this does not necessarily violate the Paris Agreement, which refers to the 20-year average, but rather that the world is quickly approaching this threshold. Combining the last 10 years of observations and the BSC 10-year forecasts, the average for this 20-year period is 1.41 ± 0.05 °C. This means that we are on the verge of failing to comply with the Paris Agreement in the coming years.
“Despite possible interannual fluctuations, in which certain years may be slightly warmer or colder than previous ones, the global climate remains on a worrying warming path that brings us closer to achieving the goals that world leaders are aiming for “We reached an agreement in Paris in 2015,” explains ICREA professor and co-head of the BSC CVC group, Markus Donat.