WASHINGTON POST • January 10, 2025
Scientists in Europe Friday confirmed that 2024 had been the hottest year on record — and the first to surpass a dangerous warming threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) that nations had pledged not to cross. But even as experts described the year as unprecedented, they acknowledged that it would ultimately become just one more marker in an upward warming trajectory causing havoc on a growing scale.