Uruguay bucks 2024 global warming trend

The world experienced its hottest year in 2024 since records began, but in the small South American country of Uruguay, global warming was counteracted by bouts of "near-historic" cold.

Last year was the warmest globally since data recording began in 1850, Europe's climate monitor Copernicus said Friday, confirming what it had been predicting for months.

But in Uruguay, nestled between Brazil and Argentina, the 2024 winter was nearly two degrees Celsius (about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) colder than usual, and summer took its time to arrive.

The country's average annual temperature was 18.1 degrees Celsius, Mario Bidegain of the Uruguayan Meteorological Institute told AFP. 

2017 had been Uruguay's warmest year on record since 1980, with an average of 18.8 degrees C.

But last year, said Bidegain, the country experienced "a near-historic cold spell" during the southern hemisphere winter in July and August, with frost, atypical in the country, recorded nationwide on several days.

According to the EU's Copernicus, the regions least affected by global warming in 2024 were those closest to the Earth's poles, particularly those in the southern hemisphere.

Global warming does not follow a uniform trend and cooler years can follow warmer ones.

The relatively moderate temperatures in Uruguay in 2024 illustrate this climate variability.

While there were no "significant changes to the (temperature) averages" in Uruguay, the country nevertheless experienced other "severe phenomena, both in quantity and quality," said Juan Luis Perez, a meteorologist with research company Nimbus.

"They have almost doubled and have become more intense. When it rains, the city (Montevideo) overflows and cars float in the streets," he said.

"The weather is more uncontrolled," added Perez, with weather forecasting models "no longer as reliable as they were a couple of years ago."

In Uruguay, as elsewhere, the long-term trend is undeniable: the country's average temperature has increased 1.3 degrees C over the last century.

– TIMES/AFP