The World Meteorological Organization confirmed 2024 as the warmest year on record going back to 1850, and the first year that the global average temperature has exceeded 1.5°C above the 1850–1900 preindustrial average. The past 10 years (2015–24) are the 10 warmest years on record.

2024 saw exceptional land and sea surface temperatures and ocean heat. Studies have indicated ocean warming played a key role in the record high global average temperature anomaly in 2024. It is this additional heat and energy stored in the world’s oceans that helped fuel many of the catastrophes of 2024, from intense hurricanes in the North Atlantic to flash flooding in Europe. Attribution studies have shown that the fingerprint of climate change is on these events.

The global natural catastrophes of 2024 caused approximately US$320 billion in economic losses and around US$135 billion or US$140 billion in insured losses, according to market estimates from Munich Re and Swiss Re. The insured losses are considerably higher than the inflation-adjusted averages of the past 10 and 30 years.

This makes 2024 the fifth consecutive year (2020–24) of global insured catastrophe losses over US$100 billion. A significant majority of the losses stemmed from weather events across the globe—including tropical cyclones, severe convective storms, and floods—with nearly one-third of insured losses a result of major hurricane landfalls in the U.S.