Every major climate monitoring service in the world agrees. Last year was the warmest on record.
The average global temperature was between 1.55 and 1.6 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
And there is worse to come.
The World Meteorological Organisation has just published an end of year Climate change report for 2024.
It incorporates the observations and global warming datasets of NASA's Goddard Institute, America’s National Oceanic and Aeronautical organisation, the UK Met Office, the EU Copernicus Climate Change Service, the Japanese Meteorological Agency and others.
That’s where the estimate of 1.55 degrees Celsius of global warming last year came from.
The 1.6 degrees figure comes from the EU Copernicus Climate Change Service who published their individual and separate report earlier the same day.
Overall, however, they are telling the exact same story - humanity has never lived through warming this fast, and it is most worrying.
One major observation from the WMO/NASA report is still rattling around my brain, however.
It relates to the warming of the oceans around us.
It is already well known that oceans absorb 90% of the extra heat trapped on Earth because of the higher concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Many will have known too that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is already 50% higher than before the age of oil - the so-called pre-industrial age from 1850 to 1900.
The reports show there is more carbon dioxide floating in Earth’s atmosphere now than at any point over the past 2 million years.
Methane has a hugely more powerful global warming impact than carbon dioxide. The reports say there is more methane in the atmosphere than at any time in at least 800,000 years.
But what is new to me from these latest reports and was very clearly explained in the WMO/NASA report, is something about what all that is doing to the oceans around us.
The report highlights that in one year alone, from 2023 to 2024, the heat content added to the first 2 kilometres depth in our oceans was equivalent to 140 times the total amount of energy generated by all electricity stations in the entire world.
Just think about that for a moment.
It is saying that 90% of the extra energy trapped on Earth by greenhouse gases in a single year equates to 140 times all the electricity generated in the entire world - and most of that electricity is generated by the very fossil fuels causing the build-up of greenhouse gases in the first place.
All that extra heat arrives here as solar energy from the sun, and instead of being reflected into space it ends up getting trapped into our oceans.
Ireland is surrounded by oceans. So, this should be a huge issue for us.
We are pretty much oblivious to what is happening beneath the surface. The fact is that what happens in those oceans impacts on us - bigger storms, faster winds, more intense rainfall. And we are not prepared.
The EU Copernicus Climate Change service stressed in their report that it is now vitally important for governments to focus much more intensely on climate "adaptation".
That means all the things we need to do to protect property, infrastructure, lives, and livelihoods in the face of the climate disasters and weather extremes that are certain to become more frequent and more intense throughout our lives.
Even if we stopped all global greenhouse gas emissions in the morning the climate will continue to warm for a few hundred years more. That is how long it will take for the greenhouse gases we have already emitted to dissipate.
The EU Copernicus Climate Change Service said 10 July last year set a new world record for the hottest average single-day temperature for the entire globe, when the thermometers hit 17.16 degrees Celsius.
Then twelve days later another record was set when 44% of all the people in the world suffered strong or extreme heat stress in a single day.
We need to figure out how we are going to live with these kinds of extremes, and we need to do it fast.
We are facing a future where fewer and fewer insurance companies are going to offer protection from floods, wildfire, and other weather-related damages to households and businesses. What are we going to do about that?
Where will we get water during a drought for major cities like Dublin, which is already stuck for water in a rainy winter?
Are we prepared as a society to put up with increasingly frequent electricity blackouts and related water service disruption because of repeated storm-damage to overhead power lines, or should we start burying the most exposed power cables underground now.
What about coastal erosion, houses, and properties falling into the sea (or rivers)?
How can we adapt our cities to ensure they stay cool in summer heat, which can be a huge killer?
Drainage, built environment, public infrastructure. The threats are real.
We have no playbook to follow, no rules to guide us, no lessons to learn from history that can save us from the challenges unfolding.
Yet we need answers to all these questions and so many more, and we need to act fast.
That is what these latest scientific reports from Copernicus, NASA, the WMO, the US, Japanese, British and many other meteorological reports are in effect telling us.
