2024 shattered temperature records, surpassing 2023’s historic highs to become the warmest year ever recorded. Extreme heatwaves hit West Africa in February, South America and Eastern Europe in March, Southeast Asia in April, and Mexico in June.
Key points
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A record number of heatwave days occurred in central, western and southern Africa (Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa); events during 11–15 February and 31 March–4 April brought temperature anomalies of ~4 °C.
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Large swathes of South America (Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Peru, Venezuela, Colombia) experienced a record >150 heatwave days; the 11–18 March and 22–25 August events experienced temperature anomalies of 8 °C and 7.5 °C, respectively.
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Temperature records were smashed across the remainder of the land surface, including an unprecedented April heatwave in southeast Asia (>43 °C), and severe June heat in southern USA and Mexico (reaching up to 48 °C) and the Eastern Mediterranean (>45 °C).
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Data availability
ERA5-Land hourly data are publicly available from the Copernicus Climate Data Store (https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/datasets/reanalysis-era5-land?tab=overview).
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Acknowledgements
R.J. acknowledges fellowship support through DAAD In-Region Scholarship Programme South Asia.
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Jha, R., Perkins-Kirkpatrick, S.E., Singh, D. et al. Extreme terrestrial heat in 2024. Nat Rev Earth Environ 6, 234–236 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-025-00661-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-025-00661-2
