Heading for record heat in 2024
The European climate change agency Copernicus has announced that by all indications so far, 2024 will be the hottest year on the planet since records have been kept.
If the projection is correct, 2024 will succeed 2023 as the warmest year on record.
Back-to-back years of record temperatures is not ideal by any stretch. To add to the alarming picture, the five years with the highest global temperatures all occurred after 2016. The order of peak heat was 2023, 2016, 2020, 2019 and 2017. Already in 2023, the average temperature has increased 1.48 degrees Celsius beyond pre-industrial levels from the 19th century – almost reaching the Paris Conference’s goal of limiting the rise to 1.5C, proving that existing climate change policies have failed.
Greece has been enveloped in scorching heat since early summer. June in particular was extremely hot in many parts of the country. On a nationwide level, it was the second warmest June since 2010. Very large positive temperature deviations were recorded in central Greece and the Peloponnese, with monthly averages up to 4.8C above normal for the season. In Athens in particular, this June was the hottest since 1860, according to the historical records of the Athens Observatory station in Thiseio. Moreover, July 2024, according to the analysis of the Athens Observatory’s meteo.gr team, was the hottest July on record for Greece. This July exceeded the average value for the period 1991-2020 by 2.9C and the previously warmest July of 2012 by +0.3C.
In the last four years, three of the four warmest Julys in Greece in at least 80 years have been recorded.
The most pronounced positive deviations in Greece were recorded in the north and west, as well as in large urban centers – due to the urban heat island effect caused by cementation.
