According to the World Meteorological Organization, the global average temperature in 2024 was about 1.55 °C above pre-industrial levels, a first for a calendar year. That does not yet mean the Paris Agreement goal has been missed, since it refers to long-term averages over about two decades. But a threshold that once seemed distant is now within reach.
On 27 August 1883, the eruption of the Indonesian volcano Krakatoa was heard as far away as Rodrigues Island, nearly 4,800 km away. Its pressure wave was picked up by barometers worldwide and circled the globe several times. The tsunamis that followed killed more than 36,000 people.
The deepest known point in the ocean, Challenger Deep, lies roughly 10,900 m below the Pacific surface. Drop Everest in and its summit would still sit about 2 km underwater. Down there, the pressure is more than 1,000 times what you feel at sea level, roughly a tonne pressing on every square centimetre.