Indicators of Global Climate Change 2024: annual update of key indicators of the state of the climate system and human influence
19 June 2025
An international group of researchers has produced a third update to key indicators of the state of the climate system set out in the IPCC AR6 assessment, building on previous editions in 2023 and 2024.
Forster et al. (2025) assess emissions, concentrations, temperatures, energy transfers, radiation balances, and the role of human activity and conclude that, while natural climate variability also played a role, the record observed temperatures in 2024 were dominated by human activity and the remaining carbon budget for 1.5° C is smaller than ever.
This year's update also included two additional indicators, global mean sea level rise and global land precipitation.
Between 2019 and 2024, global mean sea level has also increased by around 26 mm, more than doubling the long-term rate of 1.8 mm per year seen since the turn of the twentieth century.
Global land precipitation has meanwhile exhibited large interannual variability due to El Niño.
Other key findings include:
- Emissions of greenhouse gases, principally from the burning of fossil fuels, but also related to deforestation, remain at a persistent high.
- Greenhouse gas concentrations in our global atmosphere continue to increase.
- Improvements in air quality are simultaneously reducing the strength of aerosol cooling.
- The Earth's energy imbalance continues to grow, with unprecedented flows of heat into the Earth's oceans.
- Observed global average surface temperatures continue to rise.
- Human-induced warming continues to increase at a rate that is unprecedented in the instrumental record.
Publication of this up-to-date, openly accessible data, which adheres closely to IPCC methodologies, provides a means of tracking and monitoring human influence on climate in between the publication of IPCC reports.
Contact: Piers M. Forster (p.m.forster@leeds.ac.uk)
