NEW DELHI: India’s meteorological department said Wednesday that 2024 was the hottest year since 1901, with sizzling temperatures in the world’s most populous nation following a global pattern of extreme weather sparked by climate change.
“The year 2024 was the warmest year on record since 1901,” Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, director general of the India Meteorological Department, told reporters.
“The annual mean land surface air temperature across India in 2024 was 0.65 degrees Celsius above the long-term average, 1991-2020 period.”
The United Nations said last month that 2024 was set to be the warmest year ever recorded, capping a decade of unprecedented heat.
Climate change sparked a trail of extreme weather and record heat globally in 2024, fuelling natural disasters that caused billions of dollars worth of damage.
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India sweltered through its longest ever heatwave last year, with temperatures soaring over 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit).
A heatwave in May in New Delhi saw temperatures match the capital’s previous record high: 49.2 Celsius (120.5 Fahrenheit) clocked in 2022.
India is the world’s third-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases but has committed to achieve a net zero emissions economy by 2070 – two decades after most of the industrialised West.
For now, it is overwhelmingly reliant on coal for power generation.
Global warming, driven largely by the burning of fossil fuels, is not just about rising temperatures, but the knock-on effect of all the extra heat in the atmosphere and seas.
Warmer air can hold more water vapour, and warmer oceans mean greater evaporation, resulting in more intense downpours and storms.
Impacts are wide-ranging, deadly and increasingly costly, damaging property and destroying crops.
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