"Asia's Average Temperature Last Year Was the Highest on Record"

WMO Releases "2024 State of the Climate in Asia" Report
Sea Surface Temperatures Also Hit Record Highs,
Nearly Double the Global Average

An analysis has found that the average temperature in Asia last year was the highest ever recorded.

On June 23, Yonhap News reported that the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) released the "2024 State of the Climate in Asia" report on this day. According to the report, the average temperature in Asia in 2024 was about 1.04 degrees Celsius higher than the 1991-2020 average. This marks either the highest or the second-highest temperature on record. Berkeley Earth, ERA5, GISTEMP, HadCRUT5, and JRA-3Q (Japan) all ranked last year as the hottest, while NOAA GlobalTemp v6 identified 2020 as the hottest year.

On the 19th, when the daytime high temperature exceeded 33 degrees and the muggy weather continued, children visiting the fountain at Gwanghwamun Square in Jongno-gu, Seoul, enjoyed playing in the water. Photo by Jo Yongjun

Asia is warming at nearly twice the global average rate, with temperatures rising especially rapidly over land areas. In East Asia?including Korea, Japan, and China?record-breaking heatwaves persisted from April to November last year, resulting in several months with the highest monthly average temperatures ever recorded. In Korea, the temperatures in April, June, August, and September all set new records, each being 2.8 degrees, 1.3 degrees, 2.8 degrees, and 4.2 degrees higher, respectively, than the 1990-2020 average. In Myanmar, the maximum temperature reached 48.2 degrees Celsius.

Last year, sea surface temperatures in Asian waters also reached record highs. The rate of increase in the average sea surface temperature in Asian waters over the past decade was 0.24 degrees Celsius per year, nearly double the global average of 0.13 degrees. In 2024, the area affected by marine heatwaves?periods of elevated ocean surface temperatures?was the largest since records began in 1993. The intensity of marine heatwaves in the northern Indian Ocean, waters near Japan, the Yellow Sea, and the East China Sea was classified as "severe" or "extreme."

Changes in glaciers were also pronounced. In the central Himalayas and the Tianshan Mountains in northwestern China, 23 out of 24 glaciers experienced significant loss between 2023 and 2024. Among them, Urumqi Glacier No. 1, located on the eastern Tianshan Mountains, suffered its greatest loss since 1959.

Major climate disasters in Asia last year included Typhoon Yagi, which caused significant damage in Vietnam, the Philippines, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, and China. In Central Asia, including Kazakhstan and southern Russia, about 118,000 people were evacuated due to the worst flooding in approximately 70 years. In Korea, typhoons and heavy rains from May to October resulted in six casualties and about 390 billion won in property damage.

The WMO expects that precipitation in East and South Asia will be higher than average during the summer of 2025. Temperatures are generally expected to be above average, while the occurrence of tropical cyclones is anticipated to be at normal levels. Globally, the WMO projects a high likelihood that temperatures will exceed 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels between 2025 and 2029, with an increased probability of record-breaking heatwaves.

The WMO publishes this annual report to analyze the status of major climate elements and weather disasters in Asia, including temperature, precipitation, glaciers, and oceans.