European climate agency says this will likely be the hottest year on record -- again

CHICAGO (AP) — For the second year in a row, Earth will almost certainly be the hottest it's ever been. And for the first time, the globe this year reached more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming compared to the pre-industrial average, the European climate agency Copernicus said Thursday.

“It's this relentless nature of the warming that I think is is worrying,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of Copernicus.

Buontempo said the data clearly shows the planet would not see such a long sequence of record-breaking temperatures without the constant increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere driving global warming.

He cited other factors that contribute to exceptionally warm years like last year and this one. They include El Nino — the temporary warming of parts of the Pacific that changes weather worldwide — as well as volcanic eruptions that spew water vapor into the air and variations in energy from the sun. But he and other scientists say the long-term increase in temperatures beyond fluctuations like El Nino is a bad sign.

“A very strong El Nino event is a sneak peek into what the new normal will be about a decade from now,” said Zeke Hausfather, a research scientist with the nonprofit Berkeley Earth.

News of a likely second year of record heat comes a day after Republican Donald Trump, who has called climate change a “hoax” and promised to boost oil drilling and production, was reelected to the presidency. It also comes days before the next U.N. climate conference, called COP29, is set to begin in Azerbaijan. Talks are expected to focus on how to generate trillions of dollars to help the world transition to clean energes like wind and solar, and thus avoid continued warming.

Buontempo pointed out that going over the 1.5 degree Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) threshold of warming for a single year is different than the goal adopted in the 2015 Paris Agreement. That goal was meant to try to cap warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times on average, over 20 or 30 years.

A United Nations report this year said that since the mid-1800s on average, the world has already heated up 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit) — up from previous estimates of 1.1 degrees (2 degrees Fahrenheit) or 1.2 degrees (2.2 degrees Fahrenheit). That's of concern because the U.N. says the greenhouse gas emission reduction goals of the world's nations still aren't nearly ambitious enough to keep the 1.5 degree Celsius target on track.

The target was chosen to try to stave off the worst effects of climate change on humanity, including extreme weather. “The heat waves, storm damage, and droughts that we are experiencing now are just the tip of the iceberg,” said Natalie Mahowald, chair of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University.

Going over that number in 2024 doesn’t mean the overall trend line of global warming has, but “in the absence of concerted action, it soon will,” said University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann.

Stanford University climate scientist Rob Jackson put it in starker terms. “I think we have missed the 1.5 degree window,” said Jackson, who chairs the Global Carbon Project, a group of scientists who track countries’ carbon dioxide emissions. “There’s too much warming.”

Indiana state climatologist Beth Hall said she isn't surprised by the latest report from Copernicus, but emphasized that people should remember climate is a global issue beyond their local experiences with changing weather. “We tend to be siloed in our own individual world,” she said. Reports like this one “are taking into account lots and lots of locations that aren’t in our backyard.”

Buontempo stressed the importance of global observations, bolstered by international cooperation, that allow scientists to have confidence in the new report's finding: Copernicus gets its results from billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations around the world.

He said that going over the 1.5 degree Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) benchmark this year is “psychologically important” as nations make decisions internally and approach negotiations at the annual U.N. climate change summit Nov. 11-22 in Azerbaijan.

“The decision, clearly, is ours. It’s of each and every one of us. And it’s the decision of our society and our policymakers as a consequence of that,” he said. “But I believe these decisions are better made if they are based on evidence and facts.”

Follow Melina Walling on X, formerly Twitter: @MelinaWalling.

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FILE - Tourists with an umbrella walk in front of the Parthenon at the ancient Acropolis in central Athens, June 12, 2024. June 2024 was the hottest June on record, according to Europe's Copernicus climate service on Monday, July 8. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris, File)

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FILE - Ricky Leath, an outreach specialist with the City of Miami, talks with Bei Zhao, right, as he works with the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust to distribute bottles of water and other supplies to the homeless population, helping them manage high temperatures, May 15, 2024, in Miami. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)

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FILE - Counselor Izzy Kellar, of Dayton, Ohio, fills up her campers' water bottles, June 20, 2024, at YMCA Camp Kern in Oregonia, Ohio. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

FILE - A woman, center, weeps as patients of heatstroke receive treatment at a hospital in Karachi, Pakistan, June 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan, File)

FILE - A volunteer pours water to cool a man off during a hot day in Karachi, Pakistan, May 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan, File)

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Detroit Pistons center Jalen Duren left Wednesday night’s 108-107 loss to the Charlotte Hornets with a sprained left ankle and did not return.

The team Duren will be listed as day-to-day moving forward. The Pistons host the Atlanta Hawks on Friday night.

Duren appeared to slip on the floor in the early moments of the game and rolled his ankle. He seemed fine at the time and jogged off the court. Duren remained in the game for a few more minutes before leaving for good later in the first quarter after playing seven minutes.

He did not score and had three rebounds.

Losing Duren would be a huge blow to the Pistons, who had won two straight games before Brandon Miller’s putback at the buzzer lifted the Hornets to the win.

The 6-foot-10 Duren is averaging 9.5 points and 10 rebounds per game.

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Charlotte Hornets forward Miles Bridges (0) drives to the basket against Detroit Pistons center Jalen Duren (0) during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Matt Kelley)