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Yearly Average Observed Temperature Anomaly Since 1850

2024
in °F
2.73

2.5

1.5

0.5

-0.5
1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2024

ClimateChangeTracker.org: Last data update April 16, 2024 at 6:00 AM

What is the Yearly Average Observed Temperature Anomaly?

It is the difference between the average yearly global surface temperature and its pre-industrial
baseline. The pre-industrial baseline is calculated as the average temperature from 1850 to 1900. It is
also referred to as the observed warming, and is based on most recent data including natural
fluctuations.

The average temperature anomaly is a crucial metric because the change in the Earth’s average
temperature is causing major transformations to our planet. It puts the existence of many species -
including humans – at risk. Efforts to adapt to the impacts of global warming should consider the
impacts with respect to this observed warming.
 Wikipedia: Climate Change

Baselines
Many scientific global average temperature anomalies use a 1951 to 1980 baseline, showing anomaly
values roughly 0.3 °C (0.54 °F) lower. While it is scientifically valid to choose any baseline, the global
community, governments and other organizations are setting targets to limit global warming at 1.5
°C (2.7 °F) with respect to the pre-industrial baseline from 1850 to 1900.

Paris Agreement
� Please note that Human-Induced Warming is the indicator that should be used to track

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humanity’s progress against the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global temperature increase to well
below 2 °C (3.6 °F), while pursuing efforts to limit the increase to 1.5 °C (2.7 °F). We publish Human-
Induced Warming indicators in a special dashboard, which is updated only once in a year by the IGCC
collaboration. Though it doesn't reflect the most recent data on the state of climate change, it reflects
important scientific details like uncertainty ranges and long term indicators.
 Indicators of Global Climate Change

Units and measures

Degree Celsius (°C) or degree Fahrenheit (°F) per year
 Wikipedia: Degree Celsius

Insights from this chart

Since 1850
The overall increase in the average temperature anomaly since the pre-industrial baseline is driven by
human emissions of several greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous
oxide (N2O) and others, which cause an increased greenhouse effect. We, i.e. humans, are still
emitting more greenhouse gases and are causing more warming.
 CO2 Carbon Dioxide Dashboard
 CH4 Methane Dashboard

The period from 1850-1900, with relatively small blue and orange fluctuations in the chart, sets the
baseline and is widely known as the pre-industrial era baseline.

Global warming already started in the 1920s. During the 1945 to 1975 period, heavy atmospheric
pollution caused by humans cooled the Earth by reflecting sunlight, a process known as global
dimming. The cooling effect from global dimming was reduced significantly by several global efforts
to reduce air pollution.
 Wikipedia: Global Dimming

Since the late 1970s, there has been a steady and very rapid increase in the global average
temperature anomaly. The year 2023 was the hottest full year on record, with an exceptionally hot
second half of the year. On top of steady anthropogenic warming there is currently extra warming
from El Niño conditions along with extreme Northern Atlantic temperatures. The value for 2024
represents the last 12 months of available temperature data and it will likely cross 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) as
the year progresses, it may also drop again towards the end of the year.

Last ~ 2000 Years

For a large part of the last 2000 years the global average temperature anomaly was about 0.2 °C (0.36
°F) above the 1850 to 1900 baseline. The warming of the last 100 years is very large and extremely
fast compared to the long period before.

The global temperature anomaly does change over time due to natural causes, but human
greenhouse gas emissions caused changes that disrupt our planet. If we, humanity, reduce our

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greenhouse gas emissions we can halt global warming.

 Wikipedia: Climate Change
 IPCC: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Official Website

About the data

For values since 1850 we primarily use data from the IGCC, which is an average of four sources:
HadCRUT5, NOAAGlobalTemp, Berkeley Earth and Kadow et al.. The IGCC data updates yearly, to
estimate warming for the current year the latest updates from sources are used directly. This data is
gathered using a huge number of weather stations on land, ships, buoys and more.

For the years leading up to 1850 we use PAGES2k Consortium reconstruction data. It is based on
models where temperatures are reconstructed from proxies. Proxy analysis has higher uncertainty,
and we display the smoothed set to highlight the longer-term fluctuations.
 Wikipedia: Proxy (Climate)

The value for the current year is actually the average for the last 12 months; for example, in March we
include values since the previous April. This approach allows us to include the latest data for a full
year and avoids showing possibly misleading values when using shorter time periods.

Data sources
IGCC
 Indicators of Global Climate Change 2022
Credits: Chris Smith, Tristram Walsh, Alex Borger, Piers Forster, Nathan Gillett, Mathias Hauser, Willam Lamb,
Robin Lamboll, Matthew Palmer, Aurélien Ribes, Dominik Schumacher, Sonia Seneviratne, Blair Trewin, & Karina
von Schuckmann. (2023). Indicators of Global Climate Change 2022 (v2023.06.02). Zenodo. https://doi.org/
10.5281/zenodo.8000192
Update cycle: yearly
Delay: up to a year

HadCRUT5
 Met Office Hadley Centre
Credits: Morice, C.P., J.J. Kennedy, N.A. Rayner, J.P. Winn, E. Hogan, R.E. Killick, R.J.H. Dunn, T.J. Osborn, P.D. Jones
and I.R. Simpson (in press) An updated assessment of near-surface temperature change from 1850: the
HadCRUT5 dataset. Journal of Geophysical Research (Atmospheres) doi:10.1029/2019JD032361
Update cycle: monthly
Delay: Less than 1 month

NOAA Global Temp. v5.1

 NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information
Credits: R. S. Vose, B. Huang, X. Yin, D. Arndt, D. R. Easterling, J. H. Lawrimore, M. J. Menne, A. Sanchez-Lugo, and
H. M. Zhang (2022): NOAA Global Surface Temperature Dataset (NOAAGlobalTemp), Version 5.1 Gridded. NOAA
National Centers for Environmental Information. doi.org/10.25921/2tj4-0e21.
Update cycle: monthly
Delay: Less than 1 month

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Temperature Data
 Berkeley Earth
Credits: Rohde, R. A. and Hausfather, Z.: The Berkeley Earth Land/Ocean Temperature Record, Earth Syst. Sci.
Data, 12, 3469–3479, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-3469-2020, 2020.
Update cycle: monthly
Delay: ~ 1 to 4 month

Kadow et al.
 Kadow et al.
Credits: Kadow, C., Hall, D.M. & Ulbrich, U. Artificial intelligence reconstructs missing climate information. Nat.
Geosci. 13, 408–413 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-020-0582-5

PAGES2k Common Era Surface Temperature Reconstructions

 NCEI NOAA
Credits: PAGES2k Consortium: Raphael Neukom, Luis A. Barboza, Michael P. Erb, Feng Shi, Julien Emile-Geay,
Michael N. Evans, Jörg Franke, Darrell S. Kaufman, Lucie Lücke, Kira Rehfeld, Andrew Schurer,Feng Zhu,Stefan
Brönnimann, Gregory J. Hakim, Benjamin J. Henley, Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist, Nicholas McKay, Veronika
Valler, Lucien von Gunten. 2019. Consistent multidecadal variability in global temperature reconstructions and
simulations over the Common Era. Nature Geoscience, 12. doi: 10.1038/s41561-019-0400-0. Data accessed on
May 4. 2022

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