Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain Earth reached its warmest year on record in 2024, according to data from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service , Europe’s leading environmental monitoring program. The service found that last year was the first to exceed the 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 F) limit above the pre-industrial average set by the 2015 Paris Agreement, an international treaty that aims to reduce and roll back climate change. “2023 was roughly 0.3 degrees Celsius (0.5 F) warmer than 2022,” said Kevin Grise, an associate professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, “and 2024 continued that trend of being warmer than the previous year.” At UVA, Grise teaches a variety of weather-related classes, including Atmosphere and Weather, Introduction to Climatology, and Atmospheric Dynamics. His research looks for ways to accurately predict future weather events. Part of this research includes working with computer models that predict what should happen in a warming climate over the next few years based on current estimates. “A key focus is trying to understand whether we can confidently say these models are capturing the weather pattern changes experts say are going to happen in our changing climate,” he said. Grise’s research focuses on atmospheric dynamics and how wind circulation patterns change due to both natural cycles and climate change. In the 11 years he’s been at UVA, the world has warmed by approximately 0.5 degrees Celsius, about 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit. Grise said Virginia can expect more heat waves as the climate continues to warm. What many people don’t realize, he said, is that much of warming’s impact happens at night. “If people don’t have access to air conditioning , it becomes even harder for them to cool off on very warm nights,” he said. The Earth’s warming is believed to be the […]