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34m ago

2025 Confirmed as Third-Warmest Year as 3-Year Global Average Tops 1.5°C

Scientists say fossil-fuel emissions are now driving warming high enough that a lasting overshoot of the Paris target is likely within the next few years.

FILE - Paramedics provide aid to tourists and residents with an ambulance, next to the historical Spanish Steps, in Rome, Italy, July 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, File)
FILE - A boy cools himself in a fountain on a hot day in Moscow, Russia, July 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Pavel Bednyakov, File)
FILE - Tourists use an umbrella as they walk an alley of the Trocadero gardens during a hot day Monday, Aug. 11, 2025, in Paris. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard, File)
FILE - A firefighter battles the Palisades Fire in Mandeville Canyon on Jan. 11, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

Overview

  • EU Copernicus/ECMWF data place 2025 at 1.47°C above the 1850–1900 baseline, trailing only 2024 and 2023, with the past 11 years the warmest on record.
  • The 2023–2025 period is the first three-year span with an average above 1.5°C, a short‑term breach of the Paris benchmark rather than the multi‑decadal limit.
  • Researchers identify greenhouse‑gas accumulation as the dominant driver, with unusually warm seas and recent El Niño/La Niña variability boosting temperatures; 2025 was the warmest La Niña year observed.
  • Antarctica recorded its hottest year, the Arctic its second hottest, global polar sea ice hit record lows, and about half of land areas saw more days of strong heat stress.
  • Extreme weather in 2025 produced at least 23 billion‑dollar disasters causing roughly $115 billion in damage and 276 deaths, and agencies warn a sustained exceedance of 1.5°C could arrive by the late 2020s without deep emissions cuts.