The world went through its second-warmest September this year with the warmest being September 2023, the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) has said. 

“September 2024 was 1.54°C above the pre-industrial level and was the 14th month in a 15-month period for which the global-average surface air temperature exceeded 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels,” said C3S, implemented by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts on behalf of the European Commission with funding from the EU.

The average surface air temperature of 16.17°C was 0.73°C above the 1991-2020 average for September, it said. 

Extreme rainfall risk

Samantha Burgess, Deputy Director of C3S said, “September 2024 was the second warmest both globally and for Europe. The extreme rainfall events of this month, something we are observing more and more often, have been made worse by a warmer atmosphere, leading to more intense rainfall with months’ worth of rain falling in just a few days.  The risk of extreme rainfall will continue to increase with rising temperatures …”

The European weather agency said the global-average temperature for the past 12 months (October 2023 – September 2024) is the second highest on record for any 12-month period, at 0.74°C above the 1991-2020 average, or an estimated 1.62°C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average.

The year-to-date (January–September 2024) global-average temperature anomaly is 0.71°C above the 1991-2020 average. This is the highest on record for this period and 0.19°C warmer than the same period in 2023. The average temperature anomaly for the remaining months of this year would need to drop by more than 0.4°C for 2024 not to be warmer than 2023. This has never happened, making it almost certain that 2024 is going to be the warmest year on record.

The average sea surface temperature (SST) for September 2024 was 20.83°C, the second-highest value on record for the month, and only 0.09°C below September 2023. 

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