The year 2024 will go down in climate history as a period marked by extremes. The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has confirmed that this was the warmest year on record, with global average temperatures exceeding 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. This milestone coincides with a marked increase in water-related extreme weather events, ranging from devastating floods to prolonged droughts.
According to the Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, water-related extreme events have intensified considerably in 2024, especially in the northern hemisphere, where torrential rains, severe droughts and heat waves have wreaked havoc. These phenomena reflect a combination of factors, including the impact of climate change and the influence of the El Niño event, as they point out in a study published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences: “Most extreme events have a large random element in that they are subject to fluctuations in the weather, and occur when weather patterns set up in just the 'right' way. Some extremes are more likely when larger-scale drivers such as ENSO influence the weather patterns in a region,” says CSIRO's Dr James Risbey, co-author of the study.
A global record and its implications
The Copernicus Climate Change Service noted that 2024 was the first year in which global average temperatures were consistently more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, reaching 1.63°C in July. This limit, considered critical by the Paris Agreement, underlines the urgency of more ambitious climate action. “The 1.5 °C or 2 °C limits set in the Paris Agreement on climate change do not refer to a single specific year, as has happened in 2024, but to the average over a certain number of years that filters out annual oscillations due to phenomena such as El Niño. What is really important is to prevent that figure from becoming a new long-term norm,” says Ernesto Rodríguez Camino, Senior State Meteorologist and member of the Spanish Meteorological Association.
Source: WMO.
“In Spain we have the impression that this year has not been particularly hot because the summer was milder than in the two previous years. However, globally we have reached a new record of 1.5 ºC [increase]. Climate provides the basis on which every society is built: urban planning, industry, tourism, agriculture and forests, to give a few examples, depend on the climate in each area. Climate change therefore affects all these sectors. Until now we have considered the safe level of warming, the one that does not critically affect society, to be 2°C, a figure that is getting closer and closer,” says Víctor Resco de Dios, Lecturer of Forestry Engineering and Global Change at the University of Lleida.
An uncertain future
Current trends point to an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events in the coming decades. “Today’s assessment from the World Meteorological Organization is clear: Global heating is a cold, hard fact,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres. “Individual years pushing past the 1.5 degree limit do not mean the long-term goal is shot. It means we need to fight even harder to get on track. Blazing temperatures in 2024 require trail-blazing climate action in 2025,” he said. “There's still time to avoid the worst of climate catastrophe. But leaders must act – now.”
Not only does this highlight the importance of mitigation and adaptation strategies that ensure water security and reduce impacts on the most vulnerable sectors, but 2024 sends an unequivocal message: climate change is a present reality that transforms weather patterns and challenges global resilience. Water management, as an essential resource, is at the epicentre of this challenge.