"After heat records were smashed and a torrent of extreme weather events rocked countless countries in 2023, some climate scientists believed that the waning of the El Nino weather pattern could mean 2024 would be slightly cooler.

It didn’t happen that way.

This year is expected to break 2023’s global average temperature record and the effects of the warming — more powerful hurricanes, floods, wildfires and suffocating heat — have upended lives and livelihoods.

All year, Associated Press photographers around the globe have captured moments, from the brutality unleashed during extreme weather events to human resilience in the face of hardship, that tell the story of a changing Earth."

Peter Prengaman, Alyssa Goodman, and Dana Beltaji present for the Associated Press December 17, 2024. [2]